Re: Obsessed with Mouth Noises

 --- Philippe Caquant <herodote92@...> wrote: >
This is exactly what I think too, so I'm happy not
> to
> be the only one !
>
> It is evident that depending whether you're male or
> female, upper, mid or lower class, having a flu or a
> cough, living in a city, in the country or abroad,
> younger or older, lazy or not, excited or not,
> healthy
> or sick, living in 1953 or 2003, just coming from
> the
> dentist's or chewing a gum, or whatever, you may
> pronounce the same word a thousand different ways,
> and
> yet in most cases you still will get understood.
If someone came up to me while at work (the bistro at
Ikea Richmond) and asked for a [p_hA(:)p] or a [p_hQp]
or similar, I would have little difficulty
understanding them. Not none; 'pop' simply isn't a
word used by Australians. But when a customer came in
the other week asking for a 'pup' (that is, what I
heard as 'pup'), I really had no idea what to give
him...

> So this is an endless and useless quest, phonology
> being the most external part of the language. When
> an
> engineer wants to build a car, he doesn't spend five
> years thinking of the paint colour of it, or on the
> exact form of the rear mirror.
Well, I guess it's up to you, but the phonology
dictates what is possible for the grammar (no voiced
stops? Can't voice stops for the past tense of verbs
then!).

--
Tristan.



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