Re: OT: Syllable structure in Georgian (was Re: sorta OT: cases, please help...)

Quoting Josh Roth <Fuscian@...>:

> In a message dated 12/7/01 1:31:14 AM, trwier@MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU
> writes:
>
> >Quoting laokou <laokou@...>:
> >
> >> From: "Thomas R. Wier"
> >>
> >> > Speaking of syllable structure, is there any language out there
> that
> >> > beats Georgian's EIGHT consonants in an onset?
> >> >
> >> >   gvprckvnis = "He is fleecing"
> >>
> >> Okay, I'll bite. How is this pronounced? Is "r" vocalic? Minimal
> >> pairs?
> >
> >The short answer is:  there's no real professional data to
> >answer that question.  What seems clear is that when /v/
> >follows consonants in onsets, its only function appears to
> >be to labialize them, having no strong realization itself.
> >I suspect that the other main peak of sonority in the "onset",
> >the /r/, which is IIRC a uvular trill, probably functions,
> >in effect, as a syllable nucleus. This would make my
> >question a trick question, I suppose.
>
> According to http://www.armazi.demon.co.uk/georgian/grammar1.html,
> "The pronunciation of 'r' varies from that in RP 'rate' to the
> 'r' in the Spanish 'pero' (a single tap)."
Okay, I can buy the alveolar tap, but the claim that it
can also be an RP /r/ would surprise me. But then, Georgia
has lots of dialects, and precious little phonetic research
has been done on any of them, even Standard.

> I'm not sure what the RP 'r' is, is it the  same as the
> general American one?
IIRC, the RP /r/ is much like the American intervocalically:
an alveolar or retroflex glide.

> [snip]
> >The theory that my phonetics professor espouses (in his
> >more whimsical moments, which are legion), is that a syllable
> >is basically what you want it to be -- i.e., syllables are
> >phonological, not phonetic, targets.  That explains why
> >you can find minimal pairs that are distinguished only by
> >the number of syllables:
> >
> >  hire   :  [haI(r] (where /r/ is an alveolar glide)
> >  higher :  [haI(r=]
>
> I'm not sure about that.  I pronounce them the same (I'd say
> /hAi@r\/ for both). You seem to imply that they're pronounced
> the same, yet you transcribed them with different pronunciations
Um. Not really.  A minimal pair by definition implies that they
are *not* pronounced the same.  In my dialect, and in many others,
the above two are not homophonous.  That's not true in all English
dialects, which may be your confusion.  My point also had something
to do with the arbitrariness of segmenting the phonemes: segments
do not exist at the phonetic level, so it's an open question how
you assign them to syllables.

> (/r/ and /r=/ are not the same sound; /r=/ and /@r/ are closer).
Note here that your transcription simply assumes that /@r/
has an underlying vowel there.  What if there isn't one?
That's the whole question that we're trying to answer here.

> If they're pronounced the same, what exactly is the difference?
But they're not pronounced the same for all speakers of English,
myself included. Moreover, when you say "pronounced the same"
you seem to think that "pronouncing the same" means pronouncing
the same string of segments, but as I have just said, these
don't exist at the phonetic level.  What's more there're lots
of other things (stress, tone, intonation) that don't exist
segmentally either, but must be superimposed onto the utterance.
The claim would then seem to be that syllabicity is a
supersegmental feature of somekind. If that's true, the phonetic
correlate of it would more likely be a complex of features;
it's as if you can use any one or more of them, and it's
likely to be considered phonologically a syllable.

For more introductory reading on this issue, I suggest you
check out Ladefoged's textbook _A Course in Phonetics_.

> If syllablification is totally up to the individual, what's
> the point?
Who said it was *totally* up to the individual? Not me. When
I said "basically up to the individual", I was not claiming
that it has no phonetic correlate, as if it was *purely* a
mental construct. There certainly are biological constraints
on the articulation of speech.  No one was debating this fact.
What I was saying is that there may not be any one, or even
any one constant, phonetic correlate of the syllable.

> I could say "no" /no/ and "know" /n.o/ are minimal
> pairs. How do we know that "hire" doesnt have 2 syllables, and
> "higher" only one?
Because I hear the difference between them.  I haven't done
a spectrographic analysis of them, but it seems that the
salient phonetic differences for me are length in time and
stress (volume of pulmonic pulse), and a slightly advanced
tongue root.

Look, I'm not claiming to be a disciple of this theory.  All I
said was that it was not a superficially *dumb* theory, that it
does have some reasonable explanatory power.  If you don't like
it, fine.  Join the crowd of other people who don't know what
a syllable is.

=====================================================================
Thomas Wier <trwier@...> <http://home.uchicago.edu/~trwier>
                     "...koruphàs hetéras hetére:isi prosápto:n /
Dept. of Linguistics  mú:tho:n mè: teléein atrapòn mían..."
University of Chicago "To join together diverse peaks of thought /
1010 E. 59th Street   and not complete one road that has no turn"
Chicago, IL 60637     Empedocles, _On Nature_, on speculative thinkers