USAGE: Voiced/voiceless stops in English

Roger Mills <Rfmilly@...> wrote:

> Very strange stuff.  I'm reminded of the Argentine dialect (AFAIK provincial
> and way non-standard) where trilled /r-/ and /-rr-/ are pronounced with a
>lot of Z-like offset.  I think it was in Tucumán, trying to change money, I
>was directed to "la casa [rZeZes]"--- several fruitless repeats later, the
>lady pointed down the street where I saw the sign "REYES".
Welcome, Roger! Yes, it's a dialect that you'll find in many
places in the north of Argentina. The sound is difficult to
describe; it's not a trill + a fricative in coarticulation,
but closely so -- with an apical version of /Z/. I must
admit that I've used this change -- in some dialects of
Draseléq, and then in its descendant Curco, trilled <rr>
first become this sound (more or less), then apical /Z/,
and then either /Z/ or /z/ according to the dialect. It
seems easier for me (if we're using the "minimum effort"
theory) to pronounce /z/ or /Z/ than a trilled /r/ -- though
I'm aware that the opposite has been true in the development
of many languages.

As for weird Argentine /r/'s, in La Rioja people pronounce
trilled rr's and r's in codas as mildly retroflex! (our former
president had this very characteristic pronunciation, which
was of course mocked ad nauseam by everyone in the media).


--Pablo Flores
  http://www.geocities.com/pablo-david/index.html
  http://www.geocities.com/pablo-david/draseleq.html