From: "Andreas Johansson" <andjo@...>
Subject: Re: Mutable R's
> Hm, my [Z]'s are made with the tip of the tongue (that's the apex,
right?), so
> it'd still not _articulatorily_ be simultaneous [r] and (what I think of
as)
> [Z].
>
> I can, in isolation, easily enough produce an alveolar trill with a
> simultaneous fricative made with the upperside of the tongue; I can't
believe
> it be particularly hard to learn to do it in actual speech with some
training.
> So if it's the thing, the difficulty of Czech r-caret does indeed seem to
be
> highly exagerated. I mean, it's alot simpler than those dastardly glottal
> stops!
If you were from a language where glottal stops are phonemic (as I am),
you'd have no problem with them!
Actually, I don't think the r/Z sound is that hard at all. Maybe if someone
had told me it was hard I would have believed them, but I heard it and
repeated the noise. The contrast I use in few of my conlangs is aspiration,
as I have a hard time _consistently_ pronouncing it correctly.