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

On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 23:49:45 +0100, Rene Uittenbogaard <ruittenb@...> wrote:

>Chris Bates wrote:
>
>> *shrugs* I was always unsure about fortis vs lenis. I've been told I
>> think that Dutch distinguishes fortis vs lenis rather than voiced vs
>> voiceless....
>
>For the distinctions between /s/ and /z/ [z_0], and /f/ and /v/ [v_0],
>this is often true, but this may be subject to individual and/or
>regional variation. I don't know if this also occurs for other voiced
>consonants.
Do you know how Netherlands phoneticians describe the articulatory and
auditive difference between Netherlands /s/ and voiceless /z/? In the
phonetics of Swiss German, the measurable distinction between /s/ and
voiceless /z/ is a distinction in length. However, many talk of a
"fortis-lenis" distinction, though I've never seen an explanation of what
"the force" (of the fortis) is supposed to be. Therefore, I imagine that
Swiss German has a similar consonant system like Finnish where the basic
opposition is short-long (independent from vowel length, unlike in
Scandinavian, Italian or orthographic German!), not voiced-voiceless.

>> I could be wrong though. 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...), but I wasn't
>> convinced that they weren't just being difficult.
>
>I learnt the following things from the great book "Accepted American
>Pronunciation: A Practical Guide for Speakers of Dutch":
>
>The primary distinction between word-initial stops like "pet" and "bet"
>is aspiration. Dutch people, when speaking English, often risk their
>(unaspirated) /p/, /t/ and /k/ to be mistaken for /b/, /d/ and /g/.
This makes sense! And what about these ones: Swiss German people, when
speaking French, often risk their (voiceless) /b/, /d/, /g/ to be mistaken
for /p/, /t/, /k/. Finnish people, when speaking Swiss German, often risk
their (short) /p/, /t/, /k/ to be mistaken for (voiceless) /b/, /d/, /g/.

kry@s:
j. 'mach' wust