Re: IPA griefs

On Mon, Oct 23, 2000 at 02:12:16PM -0700, jesse stephen bangs wrote:
[snip]
> > 3) _j_ is the voiced version of _c_, and is like the English "soft g"
> >   (such as in "germaine"). Unlike the English 'j', this sound is more
> >   palatal than alveolar (and definitely not dental). What could the IPA
> >   symbol be?
>
> I'm not sure where you get the idea that it's "more palatal than
> alveolar", but you're describing [dZ], again unaspirated.  Your variation
> may be slightly retracted, but the symbol is still [dZ].  In real IPA
> you'd write this with a diacritic to indicate retraction, but in e-mail
> that gets too messy.  Stick with [dZ]
OK... I think [dZ] is close enough for me. But yeah, it *is* somewhat more
retracted than the typical English j. Maybe I'll add the diacritic on my
website.

[snip]
>
> How 'bout English?  The symbol is [Z] and it occurs in English, French,
> some dialects of Spanish, Romanian, and others.
OK, I didn't realize it occurred in English as well, until the other list
members pointed it out :-) Generally, I pronounce "garage" as /g@radZ/ or
/garadZ/ (Kirsch) not /g@raZ/.

[snip]
> These sounds *do* all belong to the same type, but it's not one with a
> consistent name.  I prefer "post-alveolar", since they all occur mostly
> behind the alveolar ridge, but you'll also so alveolo-palatal used.  (Or
> palato-alveolar, but that's technically something else.)
Hmm, I guess I'll stick with "postalveolar". Interesting word, at first
look, it's tempting to parse it as "postal-veolar" but that makes no sense
so my mind re-parses it as "post-alveolar". Sounds like the lexical
equivalent of the garden paths people were talking about not long ago. :-P

[snip]
> IPA doesn't have separate symbols for dental and alveolar /t/--a major
> flaw, IMO.
Really? The IPA transcription page (the one that lists four ASCII
transcriptions -- sorry, don't have the URL handy) includes separate
symbols for dental and alveolar /t/ -- though the dental isn't really a
separate symbol, but just /t/ with a dental diacritic (Kirsch = /t[/).

>  So don't be confused by the fact that your /j/ "isn't
> dental" because the symbol [d] can be used for the more retracted,
> alveolar sound as well.
True enough... in fact, the 'd' sound in my conlang *can* be the alveolar
/d/ too: /d/ and /d[/ are allophonic.

> Also, your L1 is Taiwanese, right?
Well, close... my L1 is derived from Hokkien (Fukienese), from which
Taiwanese is also derived. The Hokkien spoken in mainland China is rather
different from Taiwanese and my L1, although I suspect my L1 is more
divergent than Taiwanese is.

>  I think that Taiwanese maintains a
> distinction between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, something which is
> totally lacking in English.
Absolutely. For example ka1 (/k<h>a/) = "foot"; ga1 (/ka/) = to cut.
Totally different things! One thing I don't quite get about the current
orthographies of Hokkien is why they chose to represent the aspirate velar
as _k_ and the non-aspirate velar as _g_, because there is also a *voiced*
velar sound (I forget how the orthographies handle it). This system is
IMNSHO confusing because _g_ is usually associated with the voiced velar.

>  You're correct in your assessment that the
> sound in English "chance" is aspirated, but that aspiration isn't really a
> feature of the English phoneme as much as the fact that all initial
> English stops are aspirated.  The fact that your conlang contrasts [tSh]
> and [tS] is great, but don't expect to be able to find IPA recordings (in
> English) that show the same distinction.
Well, add to that the fact that postalveolar stops (affricates?) are
absent from IPA, and you can see how frustrated I was :-)

>  (And don't expect English
> speakers to be able to hear the difference.  Aspiration is one of my
> persistent bugaboos.)
[snip]

Indeed. I remember someone who was lecturing about Classical Greek
pronunciation (reconstructed of course) talking about the difference
between the English initial p and the Spanish p. He said the Spanish p is
"almost like a b", and it struck me that English L1 speakers find it hard
to "hear" aspiration. Of course, the most interesting tip I got from that
lecturer was the following method of telling if a consonant is aspirated:
hold a sheet of paper close to your mouth and pronounce "spot" and "pot"
-- in the former case, nothing happens; in the latter, the paper flaps
because of the puff of air released by the aspirated p.

That was in fact the first time I actually realized there was a big
difference between aspirates and non-aspirates -- although my own L1 has
the difference, I had internalized it so much that I don't notice it. I
suspect that's the same for L1 English speakers -- they've internalized
the lack of difference between /p/ and /p<h>/ so much (because English
doesn't differentiate between them) that they find it hard to "hear".


T