Re: Mutable R's

At 10:19 AM -0800 3/25/03, Garth Wallace wrote:
>Christophe Grandsire wrote:
>>Well, American intervocalic 'd' is commonly pronounced [4], so that's why you
>>were taught it this way. And the usual comment that the Japanese 'r' is
>>between 'r' and 'l' is only due to the fact that Japanese people pronounce [4]
>>in borrowed words with a 'l'. But I am 100% sure that the Japanese 'r' is a
>>simple [4]. And I have 200 episodes of Sailor Moon in original version at home
>>to comfort me in my opinion ;))) .
>
>My teacher also insisted that it wasn't the same as a Spanish R. And a
>native speaker I know has told me that my pronunciation is very good (in
>general; he wasn't singling out how I pronounce R). Also, some time ago
>I read about the IPA that it has "its own character for the Japanese
>R"...can't remember where though, it's been a long time.
>
>But I'm not a native speaker either, so I may be totally off base about
>this.
The _Handbook of the International Phonetic Association_ shows [r`], a
post-alveolar flap, for Japanese <r>. The author, Hideo Okada, then goes on to
say that this "mainly occurs medially. Initially and after [N\], it is
typically an affricate with short friction [d_-r\_r]. A postalveolar [l_-] is
not unusual in all positions. Approximant [r\] may occasionally occur in some
environments."

Plain [4] is not mentioned.

Dirk
--
Dirk Elzinga                                               Dirk_Elzinga@byu.edu

"It is important not to let one's aesthetics interfere with the appreciation of
fact." - Stephen Anderson