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

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...>


> Marcos> That was me.  I didn't intend to contrast "approximant" with
> Marcos> "retroflex"; "approximant" is manner of articulation, while
> "retroflex"
> Marcos> is place of articulation.  I certainly don't have a retroflexion
> Marcos> in [r\], and would be surprised to find that most Americans do.
>
> Sally> Alright, I'm doubly confused, Marcos.
>
> I seem to have that effect not infrequently. :\
Perhaps because you don't clarify your terms well?  I think that most people
understand the retroflex "r" as I do, as a retroflex approximant. You may
have meant [r\] to mean a retroflex point of contact, but that's no "r" as
Americans use it.  In responses to my query for the character for the "r" as
pronounced by Americans has been conflicting.  Jonathyn says it's [r\], so
do you,  but Ray says that that's the British "dental/alveolar approximant,"
which is essentially no "r," to my mind.  He didn't give me a CXC graph for
the American pronunciation of "r."

> Sally> PLACE of articulation?  So retroflexion of the tongue would
> Sally> require it to touch the palate?
>
> Well, as with the other POAs, not necessarily touch, but at least point
> at;
That's an approximant, as I have come to understand it.

> how much touching, if any, depends on whether it's an approximant,
> fricative, or plosive.  But other than that nit, as I understand it,
> that is correct.  Look at an IPA chart - "Retroflex" is a column, along
> with the other POAs, in between "Postalveolar" and "Palatal".
Yeah, but doesn't that require you to call the American "r" a retroflex
approximant, not an alveolar approximant?   It's also odd to me that
retroflex would be a place of articulation.  It's a description of a
movement made by the tongue.  Labial, dental, labio-dental, alveolar,
post-alveolar, palatal, velar, and uvular all refer to structures inside the
mouth, where retroflex, strictly speaking, refers to a muscular movement of
the tongue.  If by a "retroflex POA" linguists mean the
post-alveolar-palatal, then I would prefer that term.

I'd also appreciate your including the rest of my comments.  I'll copy them
in at the bottom, since I, too, would like others to respond to my
questions.

> All of the places of articulation used in phonetic terminology also
> imply something of the manner of articulation.
Yes, understood.  But we don't call the uvular POA the gargling point.  Not
even in Latin.

Dental and Alveolar
> sounds are made by touching the teeth/alveolar ridge
> - with the tip of the tongue.  Palatal sounds are made by touching the
> palate - with the blade of the tongue.    Retroflex sounds are made by
> touching the palate - with the tip of the tongue, which must be curled
> back to accomplish this.
As I said, retroflex approximant, then.

>
> 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.
Yes, that *is* a large source of confusion, Marcos, because you are applying
your interpretation to a well-known term: the American retroflex r.

> That doesn't happen when I pronounce an R; if I start with
> my R and then close it up completely, it is still the upper tip of my
> tongue touching the roof of my mouth.  But there is definitely some
> tongue-curling, and it is definitely more postalveolar than alveloar.
Well exactly.  My point.

> So I am no longer certain that my R is not, in fact, retroflex.
Are you British?  Because Ray talks about the "dental-*alveolar*
approximant" (in English r) as [r\].

But I
> got the impression by reading this list that the retroflex approximant
> was a rare sound; in fact, the CXS for it is a trigraph, [r\`].  Which
> doesn't jibe with it being the standard American rhotic.
I find the term "retroflex r" or "retroflex approximant" to be a convenient
and perfectly logical description of the American "r" that distinguishes it
from other forms of "r." Since many other languages, as announced on this
list, have a retroflex tap, then I prefer "retroflex approximant."

> Input from others would be appreciated. :)
>
> -Marcos
Same here.  Here's the rest of my letter to Marcos, which I'd like some
clarification of, or punishment for <G>:
>>
I have
always understood a "retroflex r" to mean one in which the tongue is drawn
back and the tip curled up, so, rather, MANNER of articulation.
Retroflectere: "to bend back."  The tongue pulls back and the tip curls up
towards the roof of the mouth.  If we stick strictly to the meaning of the
term itself, then I indeed do pronounce my "r"s in English retroflexively,
and so, I imagine, do millions of other Americans.  If I didn't retroflex my
tongue in pronouncing "r",  I'd be saying something like "it's hahd to pahk
the cah in the dahk."  Some Bostonians, some southerners, and most Brits
have so relaxed retroflexion that we don't hear the r at all.  Am I to drop
this term "retroflex" in the description of my use of "r" because you tell
me now that it's a place of articulation?  I've never heard it described
that way.  I have always assumed it to be what you and others call an
approximant, but one that requires the motion or manner of retroflexion.
<<

[This is before I'd heard that "retroflex" is now, somewhat weirdly, used to
mean a point or place of articulation in the mouth.  I like consistencies, I
guess, and if a POA in the mouth is to be described, it should refer to a
structure in the mouth, and not to the motion of the tongue.]

Continued:
In an earlier post you call it an alveolar approximant.  [Was this a
mistake?]

Marcos:
It is unlikely that what you, as an American, say in pronouncing
"American", is retroflex.  For most Americans it's [r\], which is an
alveolar
approximant.

Me:
  Say "r" and hold
it.  (You are American, I take it? :) The tip of the tongue is almost
touching the palate, not the alveolar ridge.  An alveolar approximant would
sound very strange to me.  Put your tongue close to the alveolar ridge and
don't quite touch it.  Make it end a syllable like /ka/.  Like an "l" not
quite realized.  Doesn't that sound foreign?   Retroflexion, it seems to me,
is essential to the pronunciation of "r" in American English.

[I think that what Ray was after was an approximant position of the tongue a
little lower down, but that just seems like a relaxed position rather than
an approximant for me, or a complete lack of retroflexion.  But I might be
thinking of "final" r, and Ray may have meant this to describe British
intervocalic "r," which is I think closer to the alveolar than American "r."
Am I right?  I really am trying to get these straight.  Sorry to go on at
such length.

Yry firrimby,
Sally

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