Re: Questions on Proto-Indo-European
| From: | Tristan <kesuari@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Sunday, January 12, 2003, 16:20 |
|---|
Christophe Grandsire wrote:
>En réponse à Quentin Read <quonton79@...>:
>
>
>> And if
>
>
>>only a small breath separated b from bh, wouldn't it
>>be hard to tell them apart in speech?
>>
>>
>Well, Mandarin speakers have no trouble distinguishing [p] and [ph] in speech,
>but have a lot of trouble with [p] and [b]. It's just a matter of what you're
>used to distinguish. For you, this "small breath" is hard to notice, but for
>the people who actually have such a sound it doesn't seem to be such a problem,
>and they would rather find distinctions that *you* make so small that they
>can't understand how you tell them apart! :))
>
Actually, if I'm not mistaken, and I quite possibly am, English /t/ and
/d/ often surface as [t_h] and [d] or [t], and in the situations where
/t/ would be [t_h], an English speaker may well hear [t] as /d/. Err...
so that 'small breath' is actually relevant to English speakers too,
sometimes moreso then whether there's breath or not.
I think. Clarify my point, someone :)
Tristan.
>
>
http://movies.yahoo.com.au - Yahoo! Movies
- What's on at your local cinema?
Replies