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

Quoting Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>:

> > 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.
>
> Some languages, e,g, the Dravidian languages have a 'retroflex lateral',
> which, I guess, is a 'rhotic lateral'.
As I mentioned shortly ago, some varieties of Swedish, including, since a
couple of years, mine, has a retroflex lateral. Or a sublaminal postalveolar
lateral approximant, to use more precise terminology (or what BP assures me is
more precise terminology, at any rate!).

It represents underlaying /rl/, or that's at any rate the standard
interpretation.

> I'm puzzled by lateral plosives and rhotic plosives.  Lateral fricatives &
> lateral
> affricates I both understand and can pronounce easily enough. But lateral
> plosive
> puzzles me? What exactly is blocking the pulmonic airstream to cause the
> plosion?
The IPA chart provides a diacritic for "lateral release", with a laterally
released 'd' as example. I'm not clear how this differs, or if it differs,
from a voiced lateral affricate at the same POA, but abscence of friction
could be a possibility.

> And I completely perplexed by rhotic plosive unless by that term you mean
> what I
> call retroflex plosive (and half a century ago were often quaintly called
> 'cerebral
> stop' in texts books).
Some books seem to use the terms "rhotic" and "retroflex" interchangeably -
I've seen Swedish /r/+dental series described as "rhotic", and Am Eng's V+/r/
sequences as "retroflex vowels".

'Cerebral stop'? Explanation of origin of that term?

> [snip]
> > fricative). Also Czech |r^| is a rhotic fricative, a
> > voiced alveolopalatal rhotic fricative.
>
> I'm very well aware of the Czech sound, as well as the Polish |rz| and of
> similar sounds
> in some Gaelic dialects. That's precisely why I didn't include myself when
> I said "To
> _some_ it sounds.......".
>
> [snip]
> But the whole argument really boils down to what is and is not meant by
> 'rhoticity' and
> IME the term does seem to have vague & subjectively set parameters.
>
> Both Javier and I can agree we hear r-coloring in the Pinyin |r|, whose
> voiceless partner is
> written |sh| (I think |sr| would have been better  :)  But the fact is
> that the Chinese
> have clearly found the /r/ in borrowings from European languages closer to
> their /l/.
I've got a book which describes Japanese /r/ as sounding as a mix of 'l', 'r'
and 'd'. I suspect this was originally aimed at Mercans who pronounce /d/ as
[4] half of the time (which still doesn't explain where the 'l' comes from),
but to me it rather suggests a monster like a voiced lateral retroflex
affricate.

It may amuse you, Ray, btw, that a book of my father's on Qin Shi Huangdi, in
the section on pinyin pronunciation, transcribes 'sh' as 'sjr'. This of course
assumes the convention that 'sj' in transcribed Furn is [S].

                                                       Andreas

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