Re: Spanish and Italian _r_ and _rr_ -- for my Romlang #3

caeruleancentaur skrev:
 >>> caeruleancentaur skrev: Two additional notes:
 >>>
 >>> 1) Word initial <r> /r/ is spelled <rr> when the word
 >>>    becomes a part of a compound word. "Guardarropa"
 >>>    (coat room) comes to mind immediately, formed from
 >>>    "guardar" (keep, guard, protect) and "ropa"
 >>>    (clothing).
 >
 >> Benct Philip Jonsson <conlang@...> wrote:
 >
 >> Interesting, rhough _guardarropa_ wouldn't seem to be an
 >> instance of it, if the first part of the compound is
 >> really the infinitive.
 >
 > No, it is not the infinitive. It is probably the 3rd
 > person singular meaning something like "it protects
 > clothing." Spanish has quite a few words of this form,
 > which I find delightful:
 >
 > * chupaflores = hummingbird, i.e., suck flowers
 > * parabrisas = windshield, i.e., stop breezes
 > * parasol = parasol, i.e., stop sun

This one has even found its way into Swedish! I don't know
if the spelling _parasoll_ is due to French influence, or if
the doubled _ll_ merely serves to indicate stress on the
last syllable. A spelling reform some 200 years ago
subjected French loans to ruthless phonemic respelling, and
some words from other languages got caught in the stream.

 > * paraguas = umbrella, i.e., stop waters (cf. French
 >   parapluie)
 > * paracaídas = parachute, i.e., stop falls
 > * parachoques = bumper, i.e., stop crashes
 > * guardapuerta = storm door, i.e., protect door (you can
 >   see that it's not the infinitive.) etc., etc.

Yes, quite obviously not the infinitive!

 >
 > There are a bunch of them using the verb "portar,"
 > to carry:
 > * portaaguja = needle-holder
 > * portabandera = flagpole socket
 > * portacarabina = carbine scabbard
 > * portacartas = mailbag
 > * portafusil = musket-sling (accent on the "i")
 > * portalápiz = pencil-holder
 > * portamonedas = purse
 > * portavoz = megaphone to name a few.
 >
 > And here's a double one: portaparaguas = umbrella stand!
 >
 > I think the form is used only with verbs of the -ar
 > conjugation. I don't recall ever seeing -er or -ir verbs
 > used. It has great potential for coining new words.
 >
 > Someday I'm going to sit with my dictionary & make a list
 > of all of these verbs. They are fascinating to me. I wish
 > I could use the form in Senjecas.

Very fascinating! I shall have to resist choking R#3
with them! :-)

 >>> caeruleancentaur skrev: The <r> is doubled to indicate
 >>> that the /r/ is retained, since it would be /4/
 >>> otherwise. Cf. "perro" and "pero."
 >
 >> Benct Philip Jonsson <conlang@...> wrote: I seem to
 >> remember that Monterey, California and Monterrey Mexico
 >> are spelled differently, though!
 >
 > A good example: monte + rey = monterrey.
 >
 >
 >>> caeruleancentaur skrev:
 >
 >>> 2) When I lived in Honduras I was introduced to /r_0/,
 >>>    the voiceless alveolar trill. Allophonic, of course,
 >>>    it occurs when
 >>> <r> is final. My American contacts often tell me they
 >>>     hear <sh> /S/. I'm told that this is part of a
 >>>     Caribbean regional accent.
 >
 >> Benct Philip Jonsson <conlang@...> wrote:
 >
 >> Are you sure Carribean Spanish /r/ isn't fricative?
 >> However that is? American English /r/ *is* fricative,
 >> which may cause Americans to perceive [r_0] as [S].
 >
 > It may well be with some folks, but not with me. I can
 > feel my tongue a-trillin' away. What do you mean by
 > "American English /r/"? I'm not aware that we have that
 > phoneme in American English (except, maybe, on the stage).
 > The only <r> that I know of
 > is /r\/ & that is an approximant, not a fricative.

I'm following the IPA recommended practice of using an
unadorned character as phonemic symbol when it doesn't
conflict with some other phoneme; thus /r/ is normally [r\]
in American English. BTW most EFL and English pronunciation
dictionaries use |r| instead of |r\| as a convenience,
exactly because no confusion can arise.

 >
 >
 >>> caeruleancentaur skrev:
 >
 >>> I understand that /r_0/ is phonemic in Welsh, spelled
 >>> <rh> to distinguish it from <r> /r/. It is a phoneme in
 >>> my conlang Senjecas.
 >
 >> Benct Philip Jonsson <conlang@...> wrote:
 >
 >> FWIW geminated /rr/ was alophonically voiceless in
 >> hellenistic Greek.
 >
 > That is good to know. It gives me a reason for its
 > occurrence in Senjecas.

That's why they wrote geminated rho with two breathings, a
smooth breathing on the first and a rough breathing on the
second. Usually *every* initial rho also gets a rough
breathing, as does every initial upsilon. That's why you get
latinizations like _rhombus_. It may have originated with
the fact that some (most?) instances of /rr/ in Greek arose
from PIE *sr or *rs, but you would expect an opposition to
develop, rather than devoicing of original *rr. Perhaps the
Hellenistic devoicing was a hypercorrection: they knew that
it was elegant to devoice some instances of _rr_, but since
they no longer knew which they devoiced all! Likewise a few
instances of initial _r-_ derived from *sr- (most instances
of *s becoming *h and then nothing if not initial), but by
no means all.

There even is a dialectal difference between Aeolic
_arsen_ and Attic _arren_ 'poison'. The adjective got
borrowed into Latin as _arsenicus_ because the Greek
physicians wrote in Aeolic.

FWIW the Kushana language, spoken in Bactria (Afghanistan)
and northern India in the first centuries CE was written
in the Greek alphabet with the addition of a letter for
/S/ which looked like Þ -- probably derived from Rho P
with a rough breathing above, or at least a conscious
alteration of Rho.

 >
 > The only allophones permitted in Senjecas are /U/ & /M/.

If they are indeed allophones they should be written [U]
and [M]! :-)

 > Of course, pitch accent can be replaced by stress accent
 > if necessary.
 >
 > Charlie http://wiki.frath.net/senjecas
 >
 >
 >
Roger Mills skrev:
 > Charlie wrote:
 >> 2) When I lived in Honduras I was introduced to /r_0/,
 >>    the voiceless alveolar trill. Allophonic, of course,
 >>    it occurs when <r> is final. My American contacts
 >>    often tell me they hear <sh> /S/. I'm told that this
 >>    is part of a Caribbean regional accent.
 >
 > Maybe more widespread-- I seem to recall that somewhere in
 > his vast obra, Borges mentions that Argentines have been
 > criticized by Spaniards for pronouncing final /r/ as "sh".
 > I thought it was in "Alarmas del doctor Américo Castro"
 > (in _Otras inquisiciones_), but no; I did, however, find
 > this nice statement there: "...no he observado jamás que
 > los españoles hablaran mejor que nosostros. (Hablan en
 > vos más alta, eso sí, con el aplomo de quienes ignoran
 > la duda.)"

I could say as much about those who think that their
particular local or social lect of any language is the
correct spoken form of the written language.


 > There is an provincial Argentine dialect that pronounces
 > /rr/ as a sort-of trilled [Z]-like sound (like Czech r-
 > hacek, I'm told; I can't do it, but it's not the same as
 > their [Z] for /ll, y/). There's a common joke for this:
 > --Mama, ¿qué es barro? --Hijito, agua con tierra.

I take it there is an uncouth word _ballo_ or _bayo_? :-)

Antonielly Garcia Rodrigues skrev:
 > On 12/14/06, caeruleancentaur
<caeruleancentaur@...> wrote:
 >>
 >> I think the form is used only with verbs of the -ar
conjugation. I
 >> don't recall ever seeing -er or -ir verbs used.
 >>
 >
 > "Cubrecamas" (blanket, lit. "covers-beds") is an example
 > of composite word with a verb that is not in the "-ar"
 > conjugation. Another examples are "abrelatas" (can opener,
 > lit. "opens- cans") and "sabelotodo" (presumptious person,
 > lit. "knows it all").
 >
 >>
 >> Someday I'm going to sit with my dictionary & make a list
 >> of all of these verbs. They are fascinating to me.
 >>
 >
 > They are fascinating for me, too. If you make such a list,
 > please publish it and tell us where it is. I found a
 > website that contains some compound words that follow the
 > verb+noun scheme (and other interesting schemes) in
 > Spanish:
 >
http://www.ihaystack.com/authors/t/c_a_toledano/00015127_pi-
tmans_commercial_spanish_grammar_2nd_ed/00015127_english_an-
d_spanish_ascii_p027.htm

 >
 >
 > Examples:

As I said fascinating! I'll have to avoid stuffing R#3 with
them! They look very exotic to speakers of Germanic
languages used to compounds on the pattern of _can-opener_,
i.e. object noun + agent noun formed from verb. OTOH we have
      tons of those! :-)

 >
 > There are many others in that website.
 >
 > In the Spanish Wikipedia there are some examples of
 > "sustantivos compuestos" (anteojos, pararrayos,
 > cascanueces, aguardiente, rascacielos, cortaunhas) in:
 > <http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustantivo> Also take a look
 > at the following pages:
 > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compound_%28linguistics%29>
 >
<http://www.helloworld.com.es/english/quick%20reference/nou-
ns/scn/compoundnouns.htm>

 >
 > <http://html.rincondelvago.com/lenguaje_10.html>
 >
 > I would also like to collect such nice constructions. If
 > you have further references, please tell us.
 >
 > Antonielly Garcia Rodrigues

Thanks for all those links.

John Quijada skrev:
 > Re-reading my earlier post, I realized I mistakenly
 > wrote: "In Paulista dialect, /4/ is [r]." It should be
 > "/4/ is [4]."

That's how I read it, actually.

 >
 > Also: I forgot to mention that Carioca Portuguese
 > pronounces /4/ as [h] in syllable-final position prior to
 > another consonant, as in "parto" ["pah.tu], while Paulista
 > Portuguese pronounces it [4] in this position.
 >
 > In Spanish, /4/ in the above position is pronounced [4],
 > although I've heard it pronounced [r] in emphatic or hyper-
 > enunciated speech in this position by a few speakers.
 >
 > The rules for elision of word-final _r_ in Catalan are
 > complex, I believe, and there are exceptions. The general
 > rule of thumb is that word-final _r_ is pronounced in
 > monosyllabic words (but there are exceptions), and elided
 > in multisyllabic words (again with exceptions, I believe).

Clearly I can have several conflicting and overlapping
patterns of pronunciation in R#3, which is kind of fun, and
hence there may be dialects with a secondary, analogical /4/--
/r/ distinction in word-final position.

I've almost decided to have _lr_ and _nr_ as sources of /r/.
I alredy have TR and DR become /r/, so you get QUATTRO
_quar_, MATREM _mar_ (but MARE _miar_), QUADRATUS
_quarriad_, PATRONUS _parró_.

 >
 > And while we're collecting Spanish compound words, don't
 > forget my favorite: tocadiscos 'record-player', literally
 > "(it) plays discs."
 >
 > By the way, both Portuguese and Italian contain these
 > kinds of compounds as well,

Yes. One gets the impression they're more frequent in
Spanish, though.

 > although in Portuguese you spell them with a hyphen
 > between the verbal morpheme and the noun, e.g., pára-
 > raios ‘lightening rod’, literally ‘(it) stops lightening-
 > bolts’. (Note how, because of the hyphen, it isn't
 > necessary to double the _r_ to preserve its /r/ phonemic
 > status as you would in Spanish. (Earlier Spanish example
 > of guadarropas is NOT infinitive + noun, but rather 3rd
 > person present + noun 'guarda' (it keeps/holds) + 'ropas',
 > the doubled _rr_ being used solely to indicate the phoneme
 > /r/ rather than /4/.)

Yes, I understand that now.

 >
 > My favorite of these compounds in Italian is
 > "rompiscatole" meaning a 'pain-in-the-ass', literally
 > "(he/she) breaks boxes."

What may have been the semantic development there! :-)

I'm also reminded of French _rendez-vous_, although it is a
verb + pronoun compound and not an instrument noun it is
still a finite verb form + something else rendering a noun.
it seems to be isolated though.

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