Re: Describing the Welsh LL to non-linguists

caeruleancentaur wrote:
 >> R A Brown <ray@...> wrote:
[snip]
 > /l/ = alveolar lateral approximant. The chart doesn't mention it,
 > but I assume it is voiced.

Yep - it's a lateral approximant, and approximants are voiced.

 >I assume, also that this could be  dental, /l_d/.

Yep.

 > /K/ = voiceless alveolar lateral fricative. This is the Welsh sound
 > in question, right?

Yep.

 > /K\/ = voiced alveolar lateral fricative.
 >
 > My question is: Can a difference actually be heard between /l/
 > and /K\/?

Most certainly! They don't sound very similar at all. [K\] is more like
[Z] or [z] pronounced with a speech defect. That's why, in fact, the IPA
symbol for [K\] is a l-yogh ligature.

 > The consonants in Senjecas consist of 12 pairs of voiced and
 > unvoiced phonemes.  Since /l/ is voiced, I have been using /l_0/
 > for the unvoiced counterpart.  Ideally, I use l-stroke for the
 > sound.  If that's not available, then <lh>.

There is no IPA symbol for this; it is shown by putting a small circle
beneath _l_.

 > Would /K/ be equally accurate?

No, it would not.

 > Is there a difference between /K/ and /l_0/?

They don't sound at all the same.

Welsh actually has both sounds, though, as in English, [l_0] is not
phonemic; it occurs as an allophone of /l/ after voiceless plosives and
fricative as, e.g. in _plant_ (children). (Welsh voiceless plosives are
more strongly aspirated than their English counterparts which is,
perhaps, why Lars thought Gwennan overdid the [l-0])

The Welsh _ll_ /K/ is quite different, as several of us have been
endeavoring to explain. It is a _fricative_ and, in some languages in
fact, has developed from earlier [s] or [S] sounds. The friction is most
clearly audible.
=========================================

Lars Finsen wrote:
> R A Brown wrote:
[snip]
>> But having just listened to a clip of her singing, her /K/ sounds to
>> me just what I would expect (I did live in Wales for 22 years) - it
>> doesn't sound at all overdone (but I wish I could trill my /r/ the way
>> she does  :)
>
> O yes, the trills are nice, aren't they?
>
> I've been listening to music on headphones a lot since my old stereo
> broke down. I suspect they make sibilants and such things a bit stronger
> than normal.
/s/ is _always_ voiceless [s] in Welsh. We anglophones who are so used
to [z] do notice that Welsh has quite a bit of hissing, and no buzzing.
South Walian Welsh also has [S] as in the name _Siân_ [Sa:n] (Jane), but
in the north it's pronounced [sj].

>>> The voiceless l is found in the north of Norway as well, btw, but
>>> there it's rather more of an approximant than a fricative.
>>
>> {scratches head} Isn't a voiced approximant lateral just plain ol' [l]?
>
> Sorry, I meant voiceless....oops, I wrote voiceless, too!
===========================================

Mark J. Reed wrote:
 > Yeah, Ray was hallucinating again. :)

Yep - approximants are normally voiced, so I read what I thought I saw
and not what I actually saw    ;)

Mea culpa!

--
Ray
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