Re: Rotokas (was: California Cheeseburger)

Quoting Tamás Racskó <tracsko@...>:

> On 22 Jun 2004 Andreas Johansson <andjo@FR...> wrote:
>
> > OTOH, one might want to treat consonant length as primary, since that's
> what's
> > being explicitly indicated.
>
>   I think it is about the meaning of markedness.
?

How did markedness enter the picture?

>   It seems to me that the basics of the Swedish spelling is a
> traditional heritage _before_ the language knew consonant length.
What gives you that impression? From what I've read, we originally had a
four-way distinction VC - V:C - VC: - V:C:, which in medieval times collapsed to
V:C - VC:. All I know of the subject suggests that consonant length was around
when the orthographical conventions in question were adopted.

> Therefore this kind of markedness has not much to do with the
> phological analysis. It is rather a simple mutual coincidence.
>
>
> > The other example that strikes me ATM is German _Kode_, also spelt
> > _Code_, from English _code_. This is however not exactly parallel
> > to the Swedish case, since while _webb_ is also phonetically
> > adapted to Swedish norms, _Kode_ is, at least by the intellectuals
> > I hear it from, pronounced à la anglais.
>
>   I have consulted with Duden's Aussprachewörterbuch: it can be
> pronounced both as [ko:t] and [ko:d@]. I think this word was
> adapted in two forms, i.e. based on the pronounciation ("Code"
> [ko:t]), as well as according to its graphical form ("Code" >
> "Kode" [ko:d@], cf. the orthographical duality of place name
> "Cottbus" ~ "Kottbus"). One half of german people pronounce it
> always as [ko:t], the other as [ko:d@]. They simply do not change
> their pronunciation when they meet the alternative form.
Nice. Every German I've heard use the word pronounces it [k@Ud] (final [-d] more
or less devoiced, but _not_ subject to Auslautverhärtung, which would have made
it into a full fortis [t]). My Duden, however, gives [ko:t] as the only
pronunciation.

>   Thus German "Kode" seems not to be a partial adaptation but an
> optional full adaptation that may be unknown in a number of German
> speakers, though.
[ko:d@] is clearly a spelling pronunciation. And [ko:t], spelt "Kode", still
represents a partial adaptation; it's not kept in the English form _code_, nor
is it fully assimilated to *_Kod_.

                                                            Andreas

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