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Re: YAEPT: track

From:Roger Mills <rfmilly@...>
Date:Wednesday, June 14, 2006, 22:13
Johnathan Knibb wrote:
> Benct Jonsson wrote: > >It claimed that the actual phonetic realization of > >'/tSr/' where it occurs is [t`s`] -- not unreasonably > >if the realization of /r/ is retroflex, which it > >apparently is in most accents in both the US and > >the UK. > > [t`s`] feels righter to me than [tS], partly because I > feel a slightly different articulatory gesture towards > the closure in /tS/ than in /tr/ - the first is laminal and > the second apical. In fact, the gesture itself doesn't > feel any different in /tr/ than in /t/+vowel.
(snip the rest of a very accurate and thoughtful analysis-- with which I agree 100%-- of the question.) There is also the interesting phenomenon, that English has no words beginning with [tSr\], that is, spelled "chr..." (and don't bring up "Christian", that's not what I mean...), and I can think of only one that even comes close-- fast speech (and non-native) "cheroot" [tS@'rut]*-- which even so is going to be 2 syllables. (Make that two exs., if you count "-cheree" in Ms. Poppins' "chim-chim-cheree" however it's spelled...). ---------------- *also pronounced [S@e'rut], I know; similarly no [dZr\]-- again, some come close; Gerard, giraffe, Jerusalem. I don't get a [Z] transition in [dr-], probably because my [d] is just a tad further back than my [t], plus the cluster is fully voiced, which is relevant. -------------------- A bit OT of course, but interesting too-- there are lots of s+C initials, but no native /sr-/; conversely there are no native sh+C except shr-. If I'm not mistaken, those descend from *skr- (+ front V?). But I once saw (prominently displayed on a restaurant window) "srimp" for "shrimp" :-))).