Re: Scouse final plosives (was: vowel descriptions)

At 06:53 on 16.12.1998, Raymond A. Brown wrote:

> At 1:39 pm -0600 15/12/98, Tom Wier wrote:
> >Nik Taylor wrote:
> >
> >> Raymond A. Brown wrote:
> >> > (or in Scouse - one of my colleagues is Scouse - [bu:kx]).
> >>
> >> [kx]?  Interesting.  Is that a general rule, syllable-final (or perhaps
> >> word-final) [k] --> [kx]?
> >
> >Also, do all voiceless stops become affricates like that? So, are
> >there things like p --> [pf] / _# and t --> [ts] (or even [tT]) / _#?
>
> Yep - the final voiceless plosives have homorganic fricative release.  So
[snip]
>
> The fricative release after final /t/ seems to me closer to [T] in sound,
> but it is not the standard dental [T]; it is an _alveolar_ fricative which
> otherwise does not occur in the dialect.
This isn't as strange as may seem.  Icelandic /T/ and /s/ differ not as
dental vs. alveolar, but as laminal vs. apical alveolar, and the same is
true about _z_ vs. _s_ in Basque.  Maybe the laminal vs. apical articulator
is the main distinction in English also, rather than the dental vs.
alveolar place.  Interestingly Icelandic speakers aren't bothered by the
interdental vs. dental sounds I use...

> Ray.
/BP