Re: Second report on Koni'

 --- Christophe Grandsire skrzypszy:

> > Hmm. I thought any civilized language would have akinda ;))
>
> From what I've gathered, the Dutch take multiplicity of dialects to be a mark
> of civilisation (in the sense that it means respect of different people) :))
Hehe. Never thought of that myself, but I like the theory.
Of course there is a Standard Dutch (called ABN, "Algemeen Beschaafd
Nederlands"), but Christophe and I regularly disagree about its interpretation.
;))

> > It would. So it's North. I hear it the way you say. A propos, can you
> > then explain me this tense-lax distinction?
>
> I wish I could, but I haven't the faintest idea what the difference is, and I
> don't think I can readily reproduce it. I just kind of hear it...
I can't really be of any help here. I don't hear it, and my /v/ just sounds
like /f/. If you would ask me, I would say tense-lax distinction has nothing to
do with it. The only difference is that /v/ might be pronounced with slightly
more voicing than [f], which is voiceless, but with much less voicing than [v].

> > I'm especially interested because it may help me to describe better the
> > Ukrainian phoneme /v/ whose main allophone is definitely different from
> > Russian [v] (which is the same as in French, I believe), but surely not
> > [w] which occurs only before consonants and in auslaut.
>
> Could Ukranian /v/ be actually [v\] (labiodental approximant)? Or is it
> definitely fricative?
My impression (not that I know much about Ukrainian) is that [v\] could be a
good candidate, indeed. But who am I?

On a sidenote, I have always been under the assumption that "Ukrainian" is the
only legitimate spelling in English. However, I have seen a lot of occurrences
lately of "Ukranian". Could someone tell me if that is a valid option, too, and
if not, why do I see it so often?

Jan

=====
"Originality is the art of concealing your source." - Franklin P. Jones

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Everything you'll ever need on one web page
from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts
http://uk.my.yahoo.com

Reply