Re: YAEPT (was Re: Stress and consonants)

Philip wrote:
<<
That reminds me of something I recently read in Wikipedia, on the
pronunciation of |th|, which suggested that those who front(?) the
sound to [f] or [v] don't merge it completely since people still know
which sound a given word "should" have even if they (think they)
pronounce them identically.

Wonder whether that's the same effect.
 >>

Kind of, but I think that researchers have known about this
effect for a long time--particularly from children's speech.  For
children that, for example, substitute [w] for "r" (I can never
remember what the phonetic transcription of our lousy "r" is
supposed to be.  Seems to change seasonally...), you can tell
without too much trouble which is which.  So, for example, if
the difference between [f] and [T], aside from place of articulation,
is length (I suspect [f] is slightly longer, though don't know of
any studies), then those who pronounce /T/ as [f] will probably
shorten the [f] that's /T/ to give it an acoustic effect that's as
close as possible to /T/.

Come to think of it, though, this could be how it starts.  Those
who use [f] for /T/ are in the minority, but if that became the
norm, then it would probably become less noticeable.  And if
everyone's doing it, and /T/ is lost, then there's no one to say
that the two /f/'s are different, but that slight length difference
may be preserved, and you'd get a near merger.

-David
*******************************************************************
"sunly eleSkarez ygralleryf ydZZixelje je ox2mejze."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."

-Jim Morrison

http://dedalvs.free.fr/