Re: OT: Phonetics (IPA)

En réponse à michael poxon :


>I've never heard /t/ + /S/ as /tS/. Compare (pardon the indelicate example!)
>"catch it" with "cat shit". A plus for that version of the IPA that
>transliterates /tS/ as c-hacek, emphasising the fact that this is one
>phoneme, not two.
Actually, *this* version of IPA makes affricates not only easy to write, 
but doesn't limit people by assigning affricates to single symbols, which 
creates trouble when you come up with an affricate that doesn't have 
already a symbol for it (take a [gG] affricate for instance. Does the 
version of IPA you refer to have a symbol for it?). IPA uses the tie-bar 
for affricates (as it does for diphtongues. So the correct way to mark the 
"ch" affricate is [t_S], not [tS]. In the same way, a diphtongue [aI] 
should rather be written [a_I], if we were to be exact in our notation). 
The only reason people think IPA doesn't have a symbol for affricates is 
that most people use IPA sloppily (or, to be less negative, don't write 
sounds with full precision) and forget to use the tie-bar. I, on the other 
hand, try to use it correctly as much as I can (especially since Maggel 
distinguishes affricates from clusters, and I'm told some natlangs do too).

It's true that affricates and clusters are different things. A cluster is a 
succession of two phones with a short period in between for the change of 
geometry of the aural apparatus. An affricate is a single phone which 
starts at one geometry and ends up at another, with the change lasting for 
the *whole* duration of the phone, instead of being restricted to a very 
short period between two sustained periods. This makes affricates slightly 
different from clusters. But at the same time, most people don't make the 
difference, and the difference, at a normal speed of speech, is indeed 
minimal. To me, the difference between "catch it" and "cat shit" is more a 
matter of intonation than a matter of affricate vs. cluster. And I'm 
supposed to have a keen ear when it comes to distinguishing sounds.

Christophe Grandsire.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang. 

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