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

On Sun, 12 Dec 2004 11:20:13 +0000, Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> wrote:

>FORTIS - consonant sound made with a relatively strong degree of muscular
>effort and breath force.
>LENIS - consonant sound made with relatively weak degree of muscular
>effort and breath force.
That's one use of the two terms. For what I know, phoneticians haven't been
able to verify this distinction, so we must consider it hypothetical.

I've also seen the terms fortis and lenis used for the whole bundle of
features that may constitute the opposition of p/t/k and b/d/g (e.g. voice,
aspiration, length). In certain languages, certain features prevail, but the
underlying opposition of fortis and lenis stays the same. This allows the
assumption that the same opposition underlies e.g. English stops and French
stops. Intuitively, I think this use of the terms is more useful, though for
what I know, it hasn't ever been verified either.

=============================================

On Sun, 12 Dec 2004 16:39:50 +0100, Henrik Theiling <theiling@...> wrote:

>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.
All southern German lack voicedness in stops and fricatives, not only in the
local dialects, but also in the local standard German. I happen to speak one
of those dialects that lacks aspiration as well, so I guess this dialect
would be one of the obvious candidates for the fortis/lenis distinction. To
me, however, it seems to be rather a length distinction, since I haven't
ever seen a plausible explanation what the distinction of fortis and lenis
articulation is.

>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.
The Austrian samples for a confusion of b/d/g and p/t/k were all inital.
Therefore, I imagine it might be the same as in many Alemannic dialects that
lack the distinction initially, but realize it as a length distinction
between vowels or voiced sounds (practically only sonorants). (My dialect
has the length distinction also initially.)

>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,
Not in the standard German I know. I don't have the pronunciation Duden, but
the Grammar Duden says (§ 59, p. 50 in the 1998 edition, and I've replaced
IPA by CXS): "Gut hörbar ist die Aspiration auch dann, wenn dem Plosiv ein
Sonorant folgt wie in [p_hlA:n] (Plan), [t_hR\o:n] (Thron)" (the aspiration
is also well audible when a plosive is followed by a sonorant as in plan,
throne). To me, it seems that the aspiration may be replaced by a de-voicing
of the sonorant, e.g. [pl_0A:n, tR\_0o:n]. I don't remember I ever heard
[plA:n, tR\o:n].

>> > 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. :-)
To me, the primary distinction in standard German is clearly the aspiration.
All instances of p/t/k that are opposed to b/d/g have it (it doesn't occur
in initial /Sp, St/, but these cannot be opposed to /*Sb, *Sd/). Another
argument: There are pronunciations of standard German that clearly
distinguish p/t/k and b/d/g, even though they lack voiced stops, e.g. in
careful Swiss standard German as heard in the media.

For what I know, most cases of English p/t/k that are opposed to b/d/g have
aspiration, and only a few don't, e.g. finally in dialects where voiced
final sounds don't lengthen the preceding vowel. Are there English dialects
that don't distinguish final p/t/k from b/d/g at all?

g_0ry@s:
j. 'mach' wust

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