Re: A phonology

Quoting JS Bangs <jaspax@...>:

> Thomas R. Wier sikyal:
>
> > Quoting JS Bangs <jaspax@...>:
> >
> > > Thomas R. Wier sikyal:
> > >
> > > > Quoting "Thomas R. Wier" <trwier@...>:
> > > >
> > > > > Quoting Roger Mills <romilly@...>:
> > > > > > Still, mightn't there be a tendency to reanalyze a word like
> > > > > up.a > u.pa??
> > > > >
> > > > > FWIW, no such language exists TMK.
> > > >
> > > > I meant:  no language exists which divides /upa/ as [up.a].
> > >
> > > My phonology teachers always claimed that English always divides
> > > /N/ to be a coda, so that "singer" should be [siN.r=]. There's
> > > some acoustic evidence for this, too.
> >
> > You mean it's not ambisyllabic?
>
> How does one demonstrate or disprove ambisyllabicity? I suppose that the
> occurrence of [&] before [N] in |hanger| suggests ambisyllabicity,
How does one prove syllabicity of any kind? Syllabification is
most easily assigned based on speaker's intuitions, because whatever
phonetic correlates there may be to syllables appear to vary
from language to language.

> since /&/ is only supposed to occur in closed syllables.
What about "yeah"?  This is /j&/ [j&:] for me.

> > For me, "singer" is [siNNr=], where [NN] represents an ambisyllabic
> > [N] rather than a geminate.  (Is there a diacritic for ambisyllabicity?)
>
> I imagine not, since ambisyllabicity is a phonological feature, not a
> phonetic one. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Syllabicity *does* have phonetic correlates; it just does not
have any one set of correlates across languages.  Supposedly,
pitch and loudness interact in some not very well understood
way to produce "syllables".

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier            "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637

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