Re: Chinese Dialect Question

On Thu, 2 Oct 2003, Estel Telcontar wrote:

> No, I understand, it was just a slip of the fingers/mind under the
> influence of the preceding text.  I meant contrastive distribution.  I
> meant that, if we're counting rhotics in English, we shouldn't ignore
> the tap, even if it's an allophone of t/d, not of "r".  I didn't mean
> to say that it was in complementary distribution with another rhotic.
Well, that's reasonable then. Ten points to you.

> > So AmE [r\] and [4] are *not* in complementary distribution, but (I
> > think
> > it's) [r\] and [r\`] are (the latter being found when acting as a
> > vowel or
> > when not before a vowel, e.g. in bird, hurry or beard).
>
> So that's the two, eh?
>
> [r\], [r\`], [4]
That's three :P

(My dialect has a voiced allophone of /t/ with a similar distribution to
the American, but I'm not sure that it's actually [4]---it sounds
different from Japanese/Spanish r. If it is, it gives me [r\] and [4].)

--
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