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

From:Sally Caves <scaves@...>
Date:Monday, November 8, 2004, 14:57
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Cowan" <jcowan@...>


> Sally Caves scripsit: > >> I just can't duplicate what John is describing and still pronounce "car" >> the way I do it. So there's no curling up of your tongue tip towards >> the roof of your mouth? It stays behind your lower teeth? Is there any >> curling at all, John? When I try to duplicate that, without the curl, >> I get not only a sound that changes the quality of my "a," but an "r" >> that sounds like "caw" with "r-coloring," If I curl it, with the tongue >> still behind the lower teeth, I get a deeper sounding r, but in order >> to make it sound right, it still points up at the roof of my mouth. > > On further investigation, my /r/ (both initial and coda) is a velar > approximant, with the tongue-behind-lower-teeth a secondary gesture. > Or perhaps it is not a gesture at all, but just the physical consequence > of keeping the front of my tongue slack.
Hmmm. I see. The "r" sound is made by raising the back of your tongue to produce sonority in the velar region. I can do it, now. It sounds a lot like my "r," but it feels utterly foreign in my mouth. And I can only do it with the coda. Does Charlie do it this way? I'd actually need to see and hear you do it.
>> You and I have met at Tim's house (that was a wonderful party!). >> I don't think I noticed that your "r" was different from mine. >> Maybe these distinctions are so subtle that it's hard for others to >> hear it when they aren't listening for it. > > Mindful of this, I taught myself to say "car" and "rack" with my own /r/, > with an alveolar approximant, and with a retroflex approximant. I tested > these as minimal pairs and as the full triplet on two native speakers of > American English, one rhotic and one partly non-rhotic (typical speakers > of NYC English have both rhotic and non-rhotic varieties at command, > and use more rhotics as the register rises). Nobody could hear any of > the differences.
Okay, that explains a lot. When did you teach this method to yourself? At a young age? Were you aware of what you were doing? (this sounds as though it was a self-conscious experiment.) Did you start out with an ordinary retroflex r and change it?
> So I suspect that children learn their American /r/s whichever way, > and suppose that everyone else pronounces it just the way they do, > but if all our mouths had fingers in them, we'd find a wide variety of > different styles of pronunciation.
I think you are utterly right. And not just with "r." With "s," as you note below. And Sean Connery has the most distinctive [S] sound, pulled back as to be almost retroflex or palatal.
>> I guess I'm frustrated that I don't completely grasp where these areas >> in my mouth are: "post alveolar, alveolar palatal, and retroflex region. >> I have been entrenched in thinking that retroflex means the curling >> of the tongue UP. > > The trouble is that the classical POA terms are capturing two separate > facts simultaneously: where the tongue is touching or almost touching, > and what part of the tongue is doing the work.
Right.
> So retroflex s and > alveolopalatal s are both being fricated against the same part of the > palate (just behind the alveolar ridge), but the first is with the tongue > tip, whereas the second is with the blade so placed that the tongue tip > winds up behind the lower teeth.
These sound different to me. They have pitches, when I make them, and the retroflex s gives almost a whole lower note, like a chickadee calling. The retroflex seems to pull the tongue back on the alveola.
>> What we need in CXS is a better representation of the variations in the >> American "r." Judging from what I've heard, these sounds have been >> neglected. > > They are neglected precisely because they make little or no difference > to anyone (except us phonetician-geeks). For all we know, there are > pairs of identical twins out there that have learned and use different > pronunciations of their /r/s.
Exactly. Sally
> John Cowan <jcowan@...> > http://www.reutershealth.com http://www.ccil.org/~cowan > Yakka foob mog. Grug pubbawup zink wattoom gazork. Chumble spuzz. > -- Calvin, giving Newton's First Law "in his own words"
Great quote.

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John Cowan <jcowan@...>