Re: Furrin phones in my own lect! (YAGPT warning!)

Hi!

"Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...> writes:
> OK, pardon my ignorance, but what is this "vocalized r" you keep
> talking about?
>...
In standard pronunciation, closed syllables in -/r/ will use a vowel
[6], thus forming a diphthong, instead of [R], which is only used
prevocalically.  I don't know what exactly are the phonemes -- it
probably depends on what you want to stress and how abstract you want
to be.  Probably there is a common standard for phonemes.  However,
/6/ is probably not a phoneme, but /r/ is and [6] is an allophone of
/r/.  It makes interesting pairs when you add endings starting with
vowels that make a closed syllable open, e.g. for my dialect:

  _leer_    /le:r/   [lE:6]   'empty'  (predicative or citation form)
  _leere_   /le:r@/  [le:R@]  'empty'  (attributive e.g. m.pl.nom.def.)

(I treat /@/ as a phoneme here, because it's more clear, but maybe you
could treat it more abstractly as /e/ in unstressed position, but I usually
write short [E] that way.)

> I've admittedly have all of six weeks of formal German training, but
> you'd think that sort of thing would have been mentioned?
It is definitely considered standard pronunciation.  I think in
Bühnenaussprache ('stage pronunciation'), which is a defined standard
for theatre plays and probably news readers try to use that, [6] is
only used after long vowels.  Anyway, since it's part of a
(constructed, but sensible) standard, this *should* be taught to
learners, I think.  I dare say that the vast majority of dialects
(with the [R] rhotic) extends the rule to short vowel + /6/, so I
often assume that is the 'standard', because I consider it more
common.

> As far as we were taught, |r| always means /R/ (or whatever) in
> German orthography.  Replacing it with [6] is mighty strange,
> especially from the perspective of a native speaker of a decidedly
> rhotic variety of English.
As Roger says, it's similar to [@] allophone of /r/ in non-rhotic
English, I think.

> Is it a feature of the standard dialect?
Yes.

> What conditions the replacement?
See above, I think closed syllable, directly post-vocalic /r/ triggers
a diphthong in -[6].

> Why is |er| sometimes [E6] and sometimes just [6]?
It depends whether _e_ represents /e/, /e:/, or /@/.  The combination
     /@r/   is pronounced [6],
     /er/   is [ER]  in Bühnenaussprache, [E6] for most, and [E:6] for me
and  /e:r/  is [e:6] in Bündenaussprache and for most,   and [E:6] for me

**Henrik
--
Relay 13 is online:
http://www.conlang.info/relay13/

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