Re: Furrin phones in my own lect!

On 3/28/06, Steven Williams <feurieaux@...> wrote:
> My trick: for the velar [k], bring your tongue _up_ to
> the soft palate, and for uvular [q], pull the root of
> your tongue _back_ to close the throat.
The description of [q] in the Klingon Dictionary makes it sound like
you should reach toward your throat with the *tip* of your tongue.
Good luck with that!   Definitely achieves a result like a "choking
sound", just as described, but . . .

> Nor does this American, despite [1] being a phoneme in
> my dialect!
>
> (the only minimal pair I can think of off-hand:
> /Rosa's/ [r\OUz@z] vs. /roses/ [r\OUz1z])
I distinguish those, but it's more like [Vz] vs [Iz].  Substituting
[@z] (or even [z=]) still sounds like "roses" to me.

> I always pronounce jery as [y] or [I].
I've been told that I have a good accent in Russian, incluing my [1].
Which I used to think was a diphthong starting with something like
[@], but apparently that was all in my head and just part of how I
thought about the articulation...

Carsten> Also, vi Tshermens

That's better spelled "Cherman", I think. :)

Carsten> are known for mixing up [T] and [s]

Well, people from all over "mix up" [T] and [s] (and [D] and [z]),
including several English dialects.  (Often there's actually a mixture
of [s] and [f] in place of [T], and [z] and [v] in place of [D], based
on position...)

Carsten> and [w] and [v].

That is indeed an infamous feature of German (and Slavic) accents.
And I totally get the substitution of [v] for [w] when the L1 has no
[w]. But the reverse phenomenon (use of [w] for |v|) confuses me.
Does that really happen outside of Hollywood accents?  If so, why?
Hypercorrection?

--
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>

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