Re: Chinese Dialect Question

On Fri, 3 Oct 2003, Mark J. Reed wrote:

> On Fri, Oct 03, 2003 at 04:37:14PM +0100, Joe wrote:
> > Well, in a lot of S. English dialects, /T/ and /f/ have merged into [f].
>
> Really?  So "path" is [paf] in adult speech?   That sounds so much like
> a child's error to me that I have trouble imagining it as a dialectical
> variant.
Funnily enough, there's some people here (Melbourne, Oz) that use [f] as
the normal version of /T/. All of them are adults. (e.g. my former boss, a
'maffs' teacher I had once, a chemistry teacher I had once.)

> But I don't know that you can claim  [T] is particularly difficult, since
> many children say [T] when trying to say [s].  It just depends on the
> child.
I don't think I've ever heard that one. I can remember being taught how to
say [T], though, getting into the van which we bought when I was four.

> Are there any dialects in which /l/ and /j/ have merged into [j]?  That's
> another common children's error.  ("Turn out the yight, Mommy!")
I've never heard that one. I *have* heard chiwdren using [w] for /l/, but
never [j]. OTOH, an optionaw extra for the Austrayan accent is to repwace
/lj/ with /j/ ('Austraya' is one of those words teachers love to correct,
but it also happens in e.g. value, aluminium [&j@mIn_j@m] etc).

--
Tristan                  <kesuari@...>

Yesterday I was a dog. Today I'm a dog. Tomorrow I'll probably still
be a dog. Sigh! There's so little hope for advancement.
                -- Snoopy

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