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Re: Palatalized / Labialized consonants

From:Isaac Penzev <isaacp@...>
Date:Friday, July 9, 2004, 11:45
John Cowan wrote:

> Oh yes. Russian itself has a four-way distinction between /pa/,
/p;a/,
> /pja/, and /p;ja/ (using ; ad hoc for palatalization). These are
written
> p+a, p+ya, p+hard+ya, and p+soft+ja respectively. /pja/ is quite rare > even in the (conservative) standard language, and is often pronounced > /p;ja/, but neither is collapsed with /p;a/.
As a native speaker of Russian, I agree with John. The same four-way distinction is also found in Ukrainian. I would not say that /pja/ is extinct, at least here in Kiev (where, although, it may be supported by Ukrainian influence - Ukrainian is less heavy as for palatalization than Russian). ================== Outo Otus wrote:
> I would have thought it very hard to make a distinction between "p;a" > and "p;ja", even impossible. ... I > don't think you could make an articulatory or auditory distinction
between
> the secondary articulation of palatalization and the primary of a
palatal
> glide.
I assure you it is alive and flourishing, and very easily made if you remember that /j/ in Russian (and esp. in Ukrainian) is a *consonant*, not a semi-vowel (at least under this phonetic condition). /"p;ati\j/ "fifth" and /"p;jani\j/ "drunk" sound ver-r-ry differently in their anlaut. -- Yitzik

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Tristan Mc Leay <kesuari@...>