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

I'm quite happy with "apical retroflex" since it stresses the motion of the
tongue rather than the place of articulation.  I still have trouble with the
IPA identification of the retroflex with a place in the mouth, but my
dislike of it doesn't make it go away.

I wonder if Marcos would agree to the term sublaminal for what he's
describing.

Sally

PS:  I wrote to Marcos: "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..."

Sorry, that was a contradiction.  Marcos means [r\] to represent the
American "r".  It's the term retroflexion that we have disagreed on: he:
POA, me: MOA.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Andreas Johansson" <andjo@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Saturday, November 06, 2004 10:12 PM
Subject: 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.
Perhaps that's why I find what I've heard of Swedish so strange sounding! :)
I'm very fond of the CD called Tra" by Hedningarna [sp?], a Swedish/Finnish
group.

> 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.
It would choke me. :(

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