Re: Mutations in General

>
>>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.

NS

P.S. Final N in Rhean is written |nk|. When a vowel is added, the |k|
reappears in pronunciation. I only did this because I didn't really like
|Ng| at the time. But I think I will say now that this derived from an
earlier PRONOUNCED |nk| which was reduced in the fashion above.

pilonk
piloN
"today"

pilonka ac'arad
piloNkV atSVrVd
"today's news"

_________________________________________________________________
Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online
http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963

Replies