Re: Russian soft/hard 'l' minimal pairs (was: glottals)

OK, you mark the point for ugol vs ugol' (I made a
counter-inquiry) :-) Nevertheless, it seems very hard
to confuse them, one being concrete (coal) and the
other abstract and locative (angle). Est' ugol' v uglu
!

The same for stal vs stal', and all the past forms of
the verbs.

Haven't found the word "l'uk" (?) meaning manhole. Do
you mean there is a letter iu after the l, or is it l
+ mjakhkij znak + u ? (The Russian characters don't
appear correctly on my screen). I know "luk", or
course (in French: oignon, poireau, échalotte, all
those vegetables having the same name in Russian,
although there look very different to me !)


--- Isaac Penzev <isaacp@...> wrote:
> NOTE: I sent part of this msg yesternight, but for
> some reason I
> didn't see it appearing in the List. If you receive
> it twice, accept
> my apologies.
> ---------------------------------
> Philippe Caquant a skrzypt:
>
> > Isn't it a question of stress, like in zAmok /
> zamOk ?
>
> > --- Isaac Penzev <isaacp@...> wrote:
> > > How can you then tell the difference between
> _ÕÇÏÌ_
> > > |ugol| 'corner' and _ÕÇÏÌØ_
> > > |ugol'| 'coal'?????
>
> Surely no. In both words it is the first syllable
> that is stressed:
> ["ug@5],
> ["ug@l_j].
> The phone*m*ic opposition may be seen in the
> following minimal pair:
> _ÌÕË_ |luk| 'onion' :: _ÌÀË_ |ljuk| 'manhole'.
>
> Pavel Iosad a skrzypt:
>
> > There are more examples where the two contrast:
> > _stal'_ 'steel' / _stal_ '(he) became'. Et cetera.
> There are many
> more, and Im sure there
> > are word-medial ones., just can't think of any.
>
> Word-initial see above.
> Word-medial: _(ÎÁ) ×ÁÌÕ_ |(na) valu| '(on the)
> shaft' :: _×ÁÌÀ_
> |valju| 'I knock (it) down'.
>
> Re _stal_. More precisely, it's not '(he) became',
> but 'became
> (m.sn.)'. Our foreign colleagues need to know that
> Russian verbs in
> preterite do not demonstrate agreement in person.
>
> -- Yitzik

=====
Philippe Caquant

"Le langage est source de malentendus."
(Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/

Reply