Re: Mutations in General

 --- Nihil Sum <nihilsum@...> wrote: > >
> >>On the deletion of the voiceless stop. There is a
> universal tendency to
> >>avoid
> >>nasal/voiceless stop sequences (often abbreviated
> *NC); this tendency is
> >>expressed in different ways in different languages
> and to different
> >>degrees.
> >
> >Universal? Then what about words like "ant"? Or is
> there something I
> missed?
> >:Peter
>
> I say the n in "ant". And in vent, went, runt,
> plant, restaurant. And the N
> in bank, brink, honk, and the m in lump, lamp, limp,
> stomp.
>
> >Muke says that his pronunciation of 'ant' actually
> lacks a nasal consonant,
> >and
> >that nasality is expressed on the preceding vowel
> (if I read his
> >transcription
> >correctly). My own pronunciation agrees with this.
>
> I know exactly the pronunciation you're talking
> about. It does happen, but I
> wouldn't call it universal. (of course, I don't tend
> to call much of
> anything universal)
> I don't pronounce any less of an n in "bent" than I
> do in "bend".
> BUT what happens a lot is the reduction of the final
> unvoiced consonant to a
> glottal stop. Hear that quite a bit: vEn? wEn? lVm?
> l&m? etc.
>
i certainly find in careful speech i have [&nt_h] and
[&:\nd]. in less careful speech i tend towards [&n?]
and [&:~d]. so there (!)

and of course there's the icelandic system, where
nasals before unvoiced stops have become unvoiced
nasals before unvoiced stops, and nasals before voiced
stops have become voiced nasals before unvoiced stops
: /nt/ > [n_0t], /nd/ > [nt]

bn


=====
bnathyuw | landan | arR
stamp the sunshine out | angelfish
your tears came like anaesthesia | phèdre

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Everything you'll ever need on one web page
from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts
http://uk.my.yahoo.com