Re: another silly phonology question

On Thu, Nov 30, 2000 at 08:08:07AM -0500, Jeff Jones wrote:
> On Wed, 29 Nov 2000 19:18:48 -0600, Eric Christopherson
> <raccoon@...> wrote:
> >Speaking of which, my Spanish professor says that the intervocalic
> >allophone [D] of /d/ in Spanish is not exactly the same as the voiced
> >allophone of Castilian /T/. I find this interesting, but I don't know of
> >any minimal pairs contrasting the two. If anyone else does though, I'd
> >like to know :)
>
> I haven't seen a response yet, so I thought I'd stick my oar in and muddy
> the waters somewhat.
> I think the difference is that between interdental (Castilian /T/), where
> the tongue protrudes between the teeth, and dental ([D]), where the tongue
> touches the back of the teeth. Wouldn't the "minimal pair" actually be a
> constrast between phonemes (i.e. /T/ and /d/)? What I think you want is a
> phonetic contrast. I don't recall when /T/ becomes voiced; it may vary from
> dialect to dialect.
Er, yes. They do belong to different phonemes, so that was the wrong
terminology. /T/ becomes voiced before voiced consonants, but it varies from
speaker to speaker, as does the voicing of /s/ (and did you know there's at
least one Spanish word with [v]? It's <afgano/a>, "Afghan", pronounced
[av"Gano]. Presumably the country is <Afganista'n> but I'm too lazy to look
it up :) )

--
Eric Christopherson / *Aiworegs Ghristobhorosyo