Re: /k/ in i.t.a.

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 18:43:50 -0500, Roger Mills <rfmilly@...> wrote:
> Yes. Are there any German words of the shape [FRONT vowel i,e,ü,ö,ä etc]
> followed by the VELAR [x]?.
In some places, yes :) But that doesn't mean much, because TTBOMK, in
such areas, *all* occurrences of /x/ are realised as [x] (or [X]; not
sure), so we don't have a contrast.

> Conversely, are they any words of the shape
> [BACK vowel u,o,a] followed by the PALATAL [C]?
Phonetically, yes (e.g., for me, |Arche| is [a:C@]), but someone (J.
Mach?) explained recently that this is irrelevant because (what he
gave as) the underlying phonemes does not have /a/ next to /x/, but
rather, they're separated by /r/. (I believe the example given was
"Monarch"; searching for that should bring up the reference.)

> It seems most likely IMO that "-chen" simply has adopted a stereotyped
> pronunciation with [C] regardless of what precedes it.
*nods*

Another vague argument for one phoneme is that [x] and [C] are often
related by inflection, e.g. Loch-Löcher, Buch-Bücher,
stechen-gestochen -- where, presumably, the shape of the word keeps a
consistent set of consonant phonemes rather than swapping between a
putative pair of */x/ and */C/.

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>