Re: English is a crazy language

Christophe Grandsire a écrit:
>>>
En réponse à John Cowan <jcowan@...>:
> No and no; "clothes" is idiosyncratically pronounced /klowz/, although
> some people use a spelling pronunciation /klowDz/.  In eye-dialect,
> it is written "clo'es".
Well, that's strange. We've had quite a few different assistants during my
years of learning English, besides French teachers who were often considered
completely bilingual. I remember four assistants especially, two from the
United States, one from Britain and the other from Ireland. Well, one thing
is sure, they *all* used [D] in "clothes", without exception (that was a
very often used word, since I was often nearly the only one around who could
master [T] and [D], and it was often used as example. That's why I know very
well that they pronounced it with [D]). Would have we been unlucky enough to
have only hypercorrectors as assistants, especially from so many different
places? i somehow doubt so.
<<<

Well, AFM accent (British: near-RP wth a hint of Midland)...

My immediate reaction to this was 'surely everyone says [Dz]?', and a little
experimentation shows this to be true for all but my fastest speech (I use
[kl@uDz]).  Using a mirror, I can see the tip of my tongue flick through the
interdental region even in fast connected speech when I can't distinguish it
auditorily from [kl@uz].

Interestingly, though, the voicing, which starts at some point during the
[l], stops early in the [D] and is entirely absent from the [z].  This
happens even in my slow, isolated, 'citation-form' pronunciation of the
word, and wasn't something I was expecting at all.  It also happens in my
'close' (vb.) [kl@uz].  (The fricatives are still clearly distinct from [T]
and [s], though, on fortis/lenis grounds.)  Has anyone else noticed this?

I bet Christophe doesn't devoice... :)

Jonathan.

'O dear white children casual as birds,
Playing among the ruined languages...'
Auden/Britten, 'Hymn to St. Cecilia'