Re: OT: Phonetics (IPA)

Mark J. Reed sikyal:

> And "preglottalization" of a stop refers to the insertion of a [?]
> berfore it?  (English "stop" /stOp/ is sometimes realized as [stO?p_}],
> so I guess that would count.  Hm.  Does an unreleased stop after a ?
> really add anything to the pronunciation?  Could that be equivalently
> written as just [stO?]?)
Well . . . no. Theoretically, [stO?p] is distinct from [stO?] and [stOp],
but I dare anyone whose native language doesn't include such stops to make
the distinction. Listening carefully to my own speech, it seems to me that
[stO?p] can be distinguished from [stO?] mostly by virtue of slight
anticipatory labialization of the vowel. Likewise, [stO?k] <stock> has
some anticipatory velarization, keeping <stock> and <stop> from being
homophones.

(N.B. My native dialect actually doesn't preglottalize non-coronal stops,
nor does it use the vowel [O]. But I can still hear the difference.)

> Also, I infer that the reason we regard <ch> = [tS] as a single sound, but
> not <x> = [ks], is because the different places of articulation of [k] and
> [s] prevent a thorough merger of those two sounds into a true affricate.
> Right?
Non. We regard [tS] as a single sound *in English* because it behaves as
such--you can begin a word with it where you can't other begin a word with
stop + fricative, and other things. In other languages this is not
necessarily true: German has [tS] sounds, but such is not a single phoneme
because it patterns as a cluster. Some languages, such as Polish, can
actually contrast the two: [t_S] is a single phonemes, but [tS] is a
cluster.

There's no reason that [ks] couldn't be monophonemic in some other
language, but it certainly isn't in English. Monophonemic clusters at
different places of articulation are rare, but not unheard-of, and my
conlang Hiksilipsi uses /ks/ and /ps/ as single phonemes. In English [nd],
[mb], [Ng] are clusters, but many African languages treat them as units.
In general, deciding which clusters are single phonemes and which are
units is a language-specific process.


Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/blog

Jesus asked them, "Who do you say that I am?"

And they answered, "You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground
of our being, the kerygma in which we find the ultimate meaning of our
interpersonal relationship."

And Jesus said, "What?"

Replies