Re: [PEER REVIEW] Mutations and sound changes (longish)

 --- Christophe Grandsire
<christophe.grandsire@...> wrote: > En réponse à
bnathyuw <bnathyuw@...>:
>
> > >
> >
> > still find it quite unlikely, but would like to
> see
> > the evidence as it could win me over.
>
> Not seen it unfortunately...
>
>  i'ld have
> > thought the arguments allen uses ( both for the
> > voiceless rho ( altho he's not so convinced by
> |rr|
> > being /rr_0/ and for the alveolar rho ) are pretty
> > strong. he looks at ancient descriptions of the
> > phonology, as well as how the sounds were
> transcribed
> > in foreign languages ( and some of the middle
> eastern
> > languages would presumably have transcribed /R\/
> as a
> > gutteral consonant rather than the /r/ they use ).
>
> Well, that may not mean much, since I've seen the
> French r transcribed by
> Arabic people with an alveolar trill, while they do
> have at least a voiceless
> uvular trill (and indeed Arabic people speaking
> French as a second language
> pronounce generally the 'r' as an alveolar trill
> instead of an uvular trill or
> fricative, something they have in their L1 and thus
> should be able to pronounce
> without a problem). It seems that when a language
> has only one rhotic, it is
> mapped by foreigners with what they consider to be
> their most common rhotic
> rather than with the sound that should sound nearest
> in their language.
>
> > also, the transfer of aspiration across the |r| in
> > phrouros > pro-horos suggests at least that /r/ (
> or )
> > /R\/ had a voiceless allophone.
> >
>
> That I didn't say was wrong. I even saw a
> description which explained that the
> only Greek rhotic was a voiceless uvular trill.
>
> > bn
> >
> > ( having just looked again at the site you cite (
> > hmmph ! no pun intended ) i get the impression
> that
> > this is a recommendation of how to pronounce
> ancient
> > greek names if you're a modern english person. as
> > englishers may be more familiar with and able to
> > produce a french |r| than an italian or greek one,
> > this may be the origin.
> >
> > just a thought )
> >
>
> I somehow doubt that nowadays English-speakers are
> more familiar with the
> French 'r' rather than the Spanish 'r'. Actually,
> seen that alveolar flaps
> appear quite frequently in English dialects (whether
> as an allophone of /t/ or
> an affected or regional way to pronounce /r\/) both
> in Britain and in America,
> I'd say exactly the contrary, and that the
> description of it as a French 'r'
> was specifically to prevent its pronunciation as a
> Spanish or Italian 'r'.
>
well, i'll keep on using /r/ at the moment ; but it's
amusing to think that vicky, who was in my class at
school and always pronounced the letter /R\/ as she
couldn't pronounce /r/ might have been getting it
right all along . . .

bn

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

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