Re: Pharingials, /l/ vs. /r/ in Southeast Asia

[John Cowan]
> Well, Mandarin does have /r/, but it is nothing like [r], which is
> probably what he was expecting.  And the other Sinitic languages
> don't have anything resembling /r/ at all.
[Roger Mills]
> Others will no doubt answer these.  But AFAIK, the r in romanized
> Chinese represents a retroflexed z or Z-like sound, and isn't
> considered a rhotic.  <ren> used to be written <jen> in an older
> system, and shows up in Japanese as <jin> as in gaijin 'foreigner'.
[Ray Brown]
>The |r| of Pinyin is actually a voiced alveopalatal fricative.
>To some it sounds more like French 'j' than any rhotic, hence in the
>Wade-Giles
>system of Romanization (common in anglophone countries before Pinyin was
>adopted),
>the sound was spelled |j|, e.g. Pinyin _rén_ = Wade-Giles _jen2_ (man,
>person, people).
Well, I don't know about other Sinitic languages, but
Mandarin initial |r| _is_ actually a rhotic sound. When
pronouncing it, the tip of the tongue _vibrates_, and
that is what rhoticity is -- in fact, rhotic sounds are
called "vibrantes" in Spanish. Check this description
of the Mandarin sound:

"less narrow constriction at arrow point, no gradual
opening. The tongue tip vibrates. (Sometimes you can
feel the vibration in your lower front teeth.)"
http://www.wfu.edu/~moran/z_GIF_images/Difficult_Sounds.gif

Or just listen to the sound itself, e.g. here:
http://www.csulb.edu/~txie/online.htm

As you can hear, it isn't just a retroflex [z`], but has
also a perceptible vibratory component (-> rhoticity).
That is, the sound is not simply a "voiced retroflex
fricative", but a "voiced retroflex _rhotic_ fricative".

This aspect is one of the many flaws of the IPA chart,
which doesn't clearly show that rhoticity and laterality
are _not_ in opposition to degree of closure (plosive/
fricative/approximant/degrees of vocalic openness), but
are separate articulatory parameters, and thus we have
"normal" laterals (i.e. lateral plosives), lateral
fricatives, lateral flaps, "normal" rhotics (i.e. rhotic
plosives), rhotic approximants, rhotic vowels, etc.

Rhotic fricatives are not that uncommon. They can be
heard in several Latin American dialects of Spanish
(sometimes described as "sibilant r, with a z-like
component", which is simply a voiced alveolar rhotic
fricative). Also Czech |r^| is a rhotic fricative, a
voiced alveolopalatal rhotic fricative. But since the
IPA symbol r (like t and d) doesn't distinguish between
the many points of articulation in the dentoalveolar
area -- another flaw --, the symbol + diacritic for
"lowered r" with which Czech |r^| is now usually
represented is ambiguous and could as well represent
the "rz" sound of those Spanish dialects different
from Czech "rzh". Well, if the guys at IPA would be
so kind to explain us why on earth they dropped the
convenient symbol for Czech |r^|... (and, by the way,
they could also explain us what they are waiting for
to deign us symbols for the mid e and o vowels, needed
to transcribe the third most spoken language).

To pronounce this kind of rhotic fricative sounds, you
may lower a plosive rhotic, raise an approximant rhotic
or rhoticize the corresponding non-rhotic sound. E.g. take
the average English initial |r|, i.e. voiced retroflex
rhotic approximant, raise it until it becomes fricative
(take away also any labialization/labiodentalization) and
you get Mandarin initial |r|, a retroflex kind of "rzh"
sound (take away its rhoticity and you get [z`]). Take
Castilian Spanish |rr|, lower it (and lenite it) and you
get that Latin American Spanish "rz" sound (take away its
rhoticity and you get [z]). Then take that "rz" alveolar
sound, shift it to alveolopalatal and you get Czech |r^|,
another non-retroflex kind of "rzh" (take away its
rhoticity and you get [z\]).

Cheers,
Javier

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