Re: How to Make Chicken Cacciatore (was: phonetics by guesswork)

Ah, at least that's a concept I can understand (Rad #
Rat). I personnally would pronounce them a different
way, but 1/ I guess some people won't, and 2/ maybe I
believe I pronounce them differently because I'm very
much influenced by written form (personal
subjectivity), and some listener would distinguish
nothing at all. Anyway, this idea of "archiphonetic"
notation seems to me something interesting, and (sorry
to say that) it rejoins the idea I gave yesterday,
without knowing yet about this, of presenting IPA or
X-SAMPA by families of sounds, like an arborescence,
and having the possibility to stop at the distinction
level you wish.

Now I can't see what this has to do with "maison".
Nearly everybody pronounces "mézõ", even if usually
"ai" represents the open "e" like in "même", for ex.
It is the same with "pays" (pé-i, and not "pè-i). So I
just can't see the point.

I also tried to distinguish, with the help of my
fingers put on my throat, which of the "d" and the "t"
is voiced, or voiceless. I felt nearly exactly the
same vibration in my fingers. Maybe it was'nt the
right test to do. I know in French, one is called
"sourde" and the other one "sonore", I never remember
which is which: wait a minute, I think "d" should be
"sonore" and "t" should be "sourde", although
personnally (when thinking of the usual meaning of the
word "sourde"), I would say exactly the contrary. But
I'm quite aware of what is a "d" and what is a "t",
since about 45 years I guess.

Thank you guys for trying to explain me something
about phonology, but I'm afraid I'm definitely dumb.
Nevertheless, you didn't completely lose your time, I
at least shall try to remember that:
- "2" is like in French "deux" and "9" is like in
"neuf"
- "voiced" means that the chords are supposed to
vibrate, even if you cannot feel it at all, and
"unvoiced" (or: voiceless ?), that they won't (hope
I'm right)
- "phoneme" is about differentiation in some real
language (like: t # d, because for ex in French "tes"
is something different from "des"). The only problem
being that you won't know in which language this
differentiation is relevant. Maybe in 999 languages it
is not, and in the 1000th it is.
- barking is used in Arabic :-)

I think I won't go much further, because I don't want
to specialize in this field (yes, I know, obviously
it's a wise decision). Nevertheless, I would suggest
that somebody would think for a little while about the
following question:
- when the student doesn't understand a point that the
teacher understands, does it mean :
1/ that the student is an idiot, and the teacher is
clever
2/ that the teacher didn't explain the point the right
way, or is not able to understand the student's
problem
3/ that the whole method of teaching (pedagogy) is not
quite adapted, or is inexistant, and then
reconsidering it a bit, perhaps even by listening what
the idiot student says, might be worth in the long
term (for future students).

In my job, I sometimes have to explain, for ex, Excel
basic functionalities to people knowing nearly nothing
about Excel (I know just a little bit more). They can
get very angry that the software doesn't work the way
they want it, and it makes me angry that they cannot
understand such basic things. But sometimes I can make
them get one point, and the next time they'll do it
themselves (and leave me in peace). This was The Excel
Parabol.

(And, ah, just a last question: how should "X-Sampa"
be pronounced ? Eks-Sampa, Cross-Sampa or Christ-Sampa
? Or other ? Just in order to make me look a little
less dumb).

--- Christian Thalmann <cinga@...> wrote:
> --- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, "Mark J. Reed"
> <markjreed@M...> wrote:
>
> > The example given in my dictionary is the final
> sound of the German
> > words |Rat| and |Rad|.  Both are pronounced the
> same way, even though
> > /t/ and /d/ are separate phonemes in other
> environments.   So instead
> > of writing /Rat/ or /Rad/, either of which implies
> a distinction which
> > is not made, you can use archiphonetic notation,
> which normally involves
> > slashes around the symbol for one of the phonemes
> involved in the
> > merger: /Ra/t//
>
> I don't know how "real" Germans treat the subject,
> but I
> personally distinguish voiced and unvoiced stops
> even finally,
> and always find it strange when people claim such
> words to
> sound identical.
>
> While both might be pronounced voiceless in this
> position, I
> give the latter a longer and more intense closure
> (obstruction?
> intermission of airflow? I don't know the exact term
> here).  I
> believe this is called a fortis/lenis distinction.
> It's the
> same thing that lets you distinguish "bead" from
> "beat" and
> "vein" from "feign" even when whispering.
>
> Is this a personal, regional or national idiolect,
> or does it
> apply to all of the German language domain?  How
> come the
> dictionaries pretend it not to exist?  Is this even
> a case of
> Frenchesque linguistic prescriptivism?  ;o)
>
>
> -- Christian Thalmann
>

=====
Philippe Caquant

"High thoughts must have high language." (Aristophanes, Frogs)


	
		
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