Re: Initial clusters, was: Re: Russian orthography

On Tue, 1 Feb 2000 10:24:13 -0500, John Cowan
<jcowan@...> wrote:

> Or, of course, Georgian:  my favorite Georgian name is
> "Mgrvgrvladje"

-dj- or -dz-? I don't know Georgian, but Georgian surnames
often end in -dze (e. g. Gamkrelidze).

> (two syllables).
Really? Very difficult thing (IMO), non-syllabic -r- between
two *voiced* obstruents... I should ask some Georgian...

In the neighboring Armenian names like Mkrtchyan are by no means
monosyllabic.

When, in Russian, I pronounce non-syllabic /l'/ in _k l'stivomu_
'to (the) flattering (one)', I have to devoice it. If I preserve
voiced /l'/, it inevitably becomes syllabic (no phonological
difference, though).

On Tue, 1 Feb 2000 15:58:49 +0100, Christophe Grandsire
<Christophe.Grandsire@...> wrote:

>>trwaæ (trwac) 'to continue': t + r_0 (devoiced /r/) + f
>        This one's easier for me. Is the /r/ trilled or flapped?
Normally it is alveolar vibrant. Devoiced after the voiceless obstruents,
like all Polish resonants.

>The /t/ and /f/
>help me devoice the /r/, and a sequence stop-liquid-fricative is not that
>difficult.
I seems that the alveolar vibration of /r/ and the labiodental friction
of /f/ are partly overlapping. Note that the whole word is perfectly
monosyllabic. All Polish examples of this kind that I was able to find
are with voiceless consonants around /r/. Cf. also: _krwi_ [krf'i] 'of
(the) blood' (Gen. Sg. of _krew_ 'blood'). But I couldn't find a similar
example with voiced obstruents.

>It's all those sequences with 4 stops in a row and a few
>fricatives that make me mad :) .
Some other tricks with the Slavonic clusters:

1. In both Polish and Russian, quite often a word starts with labiodental
+ some other sibilant + something (the Polish for 'always', the Russian
for 'meeting').

In my pronunciation [fs] in _vstrecha_ or [vz] in _vzdor_ ('nonsense')
are hardly longer than [s] in _strich'_ ('to cut /hair/, clip, shear')
and [z] in _zdaniye_ ('building'). It appears that, again, the
articulations overlap.

[fs] is clearly [f], then [s], not the reverse, and yet it seems that
[s] + [f] + some stop are much less common in Russian, at any rate in
the beginning of a sentence. E. g. when I use the preposition _s_
before some word like _vtoroy_ ('second', [ft-]), I always use its
vocalized form: _so vtorym_ 'with (the) second...'. Even when the
preposition is spelled without the vowel (and such spellings do
occur, mostly with rarer combinations that are not stored 'ready' in
one's brain), I feel more difficulty in pronouncing [sf]+ something,
and may insert some unclear vowel if the combination opens a phrase.

2. It seems that Polish also permits the reverse sequence: something +
some non-labial fricative + labiodental, e. g. _drzwi_ ([dZv'i], no
affricate!) 'door(s)' (pl. tantum).

3. Note that the most 'difficult' Polish words mostly contain a
combination 'a sibilant + a similar affricate'. Such combinations
approach to single phonemes in frequency, and it seems that they
are treated nearly as single sibilants.

4. Other difficult clusters in Polish are usually 'fricative + stop +
fricative' (e. g. _strzeli_ '/he/ shoots': s + t + S) or 'stop +
fricative + stop' (_kszta³t_ and the like); in the latter case, there
can be a nasal instead of the second stop: _brzmi_ '(it) sounds'.

5. And indeed, both Polish and Russian abound in simple combinations
'fricative + fricative': Polish _chrzan_ [xS-] 'horse-radish',
_wszystko_ [fS-] 'everything'; 'stop + stop' (Russian and Polish _kto_
'who'); 'stop + affricate': Russian _pchela_ 'bee', Polish _gdzie_
[gd_Z'e] 'where'; 'fricative + affricate: Polish _chce_ [xt_se] '(he)
wants', Russian _v tselom_ [ft_s-]'on the whole'.

Basilius