Re: fortis vs lenis (was Re: German style orthography)

Hi!

Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> writes:
>...
> I believe these terms are often used in the description of German dialects.
Right.  I think at least some, if not many, local dialects have a
fortis/lenis distinction but lack voicedness.  I don't know about
Austrian, it is definitely different from the standard High German
pronunciation, since speakers of High German usually perceive b/d/g
for Austrian p/t/k.  I have so far assumed that this is due to lack of
aspiration in Austrian.  I haven't had a chance to listen thoroughly
enough to see whether there is a distinction between p and b in
Austrian, and whether it is only fortis/lenis, or whether there is
(also or exclusively) a voiceless/voiced distinction.

Some Saarlandian dialects (maybe Western Palatinian, too) seem to have
lost distinction between b/d/g and p/t/k totally, but some have
definitely retained *some* distinction, but also not the High German
one.  I will try to find out some day after my current *holidays* when
I'm back at work with a lot of Saarlandians! :-)

> as to whether she said 'brick' or 'prick'. But I am no expert on German
> dialectology.
That's an especially weird example, because it is a special case: in
front of r and l, distinction between p/t/k and b/d/g is not retained
in many dialects.  High German loses its aspiration here, too, but
keeps a distinction in fortis/lenis and voiced/voiceless.
E.g. Saarlandian has no distinction here.  They say 'Prei' [pRaI] for
'Brei', without any distinction: linguistically aware people whom I
asked said there was no difference, and they could themselves not
distinguish it (and had to learn the correct way of writing at
school).

> > I've even heard some people argue that voicing isn't the primary
> > distinction in English (I can't remember what they were arguing
> > was the primary distinction...),
>
> Possibly aspiration - I have seen English described this way.
Hmm, primary way of distinction?  I don't know.  If any of the three
differences between High German plosives (i.e., fortis/lenis,
voicedness, aspiration) is missing, I think the phones start to be
mistaken.  So I doubt it is reasonable to promote one of the three
distinctions to a primary one.

But maybe it's done.  If so, I'd like to hear arguments, why. :-)

Comparing with Mandarin's aspirated vs. non-aspirated difference,
German has a very mild aspiration. :-) I always have to breathe out
hard to sound vaguely correct, I think.  (I tend to use [b] for [p] in
Mandarin, however, by L1 influence, of course.)

**Henrik