Re: Chinese Dialect Question

On Thu, 9 Oct 2003 23:54:22 -0400, Paul Bennett <paul-bennett@...> wrote:

>On 9 Oct 2003 at 22:51, Jonathan Andrew Beagley wrote:
>
>> Ok, please excuse my extreme ignorance, but what does fortis mean? Also,
>> what does a voiceless stop sound like? And, lastly, what do you mean by
>> potato? I'm really sorry if my questions seem silly, but I've never had
>> a class on linguistics (they don't seem to be interested in offering
>> linguistics classes in my high school :-( ).
>Fortis and Lenis are extremely old terms (but not old-fashioned)
>meaning approximately Voiceless and Voiced. There is more to it than
>that, and you can delve into the realms of the incredibly technical
>if you really want to. Unfortunately, I'm not fit to be your guide in
>such realms.
As for the potato, Isidora meant that the Danes have a funny accent that
sounds as if they speak with a potato in their mouths.

The fortis/lenis distinction is, most of the time, accompanied part and
parcel by the voiced/unvoiced distinction, at least for consonants. A fortis
consonant is usually voiceless, and a lenis consonant is usually voiced. But
the distinction isn't voice itself. It's a tense/lax distinction.

When you pronounce /s/, your tongue and mouth are held tightly in place.
That keeps the sound even and constant; it also seems to make it louder. On
the other hand, when you pronounce /z/, your tongue is looser and can move
around a bit. Therefore /s/ is fortis (in English, at least) and /z/ is lenis.

In CXS, we usually use _0 for voiceless things and _v for voiced. However,
they also see use as fortis/lenis markers. Since [t] has a simple equivalent
[d], [t_v] would indicate a lenis /t/.

Note that this is a recollection of a previous and convoluted discussion
here, so you may want to search the archives for the terms to find a better
definition.

~wright

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