Re: Chinese Dialect Question

At 02:07 PM 10/3/03 -0400, you wrote:
>Benct Philip Jonsson scripsit:
>
> > Ever heard about Danish?  Basically _b, d, g_ are [b_0, d_0, g_0] while
> > _p, t, k_ are [b_0_h, d_0_h, g_0_h] (really ugly transcription there),
>
>Granted, but if pronounced in West Germanic fashion as [b, d, g, p_h,
>t_h, k_h] the first three will merely be over-voiced and the last
>three will be over-fortis, and there is no reasonably close sound that
>will collide.  For that matter, [b_0, d_0, g_0] are not unknown in English
>either, but nobody supposes that this is an unusual use of "b", "d", "g".
>
>(The potato definitely interferes with both voicing and fortis
>enunciation, evidently.)
Which potato?  The one's that Danes invariably keep in their mouths when
speaking :-)

Can you explain the "over-voiced" and "over-fortis" business to me?  I
learned Danish before I was a lingust.

> > but after vowels and semivowels _b, d, g_ become _w, D, w/j_ and
> > _p, t, k_ become [b_0, d_0, g_0].
>
>Okay, "voiced" stops are spirantized and "unvoiced" ones are "voiced".
>Again, not really outside the scope of the stop letters.  Cf. Spanish,
>where the voicing is shown in the orthography but the spirantization
>is not.
But, IMO, Danish has an interesting twist on the spirantization.  Those
alveolars do *not* sound like ordinary fricatives.

Isidora

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