Re: Need some help with terms: was "rhotic miscellany"

Quoting Roger Mills <rfmilly@...>:

> Mark J. Reed wrote:
> > ....  Retroflex sounds are made by
> > touching the palate - with the tip of the tongue, which must be curled
> > back to accomplish this.
> >
> > But I may have hit upon a source of confusion.  I interpret "retroflex"
> > to require a *complete* backwards curling of the tongue, such that it is
> > the *bottom* of the tongue tip which makes contact (or nearly so) with
> > the palate.
>
> Disagree. That's one way, though I suspect not the usual way, of pronouncing
> e.g. Hindi "t., d.". Curling the tongue tip back so far that the underside
> contacts the palate seems a rather awkward motion, though perhaps ANADEW
Indeedy; Swedish got a whole series of them, altho all but /r/ are usually
interpreted as phonemically /r/+dental.

The more specific term for these is "sublaminal". I guess Sally's /r/ could be
labeled an apical retroflex.

                                                 Andreas

PS These are all pronounced somewhere in the postalveolar-alveopalatal area. If
you're tongue is nimble enough, it's possible to produce a sublaminal sound as
far back as the velum. Such sounds, however, are apparently used in no lang,
nat or con.

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