Re: fortis-lenis (was: How to Make Chicken Cacciatore)

Quoting "J. 'Mach' Wust" <j_mach_wust@...>:

> On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 16:44:26 +0200, Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> wrote:
>
> >Quoting "J. 'Mach' Wust" <j_mach_wust@...>:
> >
> >> On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 12:25:01 +0200, Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>
> wrote:
> >>
> >> >Quoting j_mach_wust <j_mach_wust@...>:
> >> >
> >> >> FWIK, the Swiss/Alemannic opposition of fortis and lenis is the same
> >> >> as in Finnish, even though the Alemannic opposition is represented as
> >> >> [d_0] vs. [t(:)], whereas the Finnish isn't called a fortis-lenis
> >> >> opposition and is represented as [t] vs. [t:].
> >> >
> >> >Hm. I hear Finnish 't' as /t/, not /d/, which I'd expect if it were a
> >> >dental or alveolar voiceless non-aspirated lenis stop. I guess it might
> >> >be not lenis enough.
> >>
> >> What is a lenis? I don't know it for sure; I just know that the Swiss
> >> German short voiceless stops are caled lenes, and these are identical
> >> with Finnish /t, p, k/.
> >
> >_Lenis_ is Latin for "soft" - I guess "lenes" might be the pl?
> >
> >Anyway, fortis~lenis signifies a distinction in articulatory force; during
> >the production of a fortis sound, the muscles involved are more tense than
> >during the production of a lenis one. This, of course, isn't really a
> >binary distinction, but a continuum of possibilities, in which certain
> >languages pick to points to contrast
>
> For what I know, nobody's ever succeeded in measuring that 'articulary
> force' (either in fortis-lenis or in tense-lax) (I'd be very happy to learn
> that this weren't true).
I'm not into articulatory phonetics; I don't really now. I _think_ there were
spectrographs purporting to show the difference in an old textbook I read, but
I might be misremembering.

FWIW, it certainly _feels_ like I employ more muscular tension when producing
fortis sounds than lenis ones, and, holding my palm in front of my mouth, the
airstream is perceptibly stronger when I produce (Swedish) /f/ than /v/. I've
always identified that difference in force with forticity.

> That means that so far, there's not really a
> phonetic feature 'articulary force' (comparable to features such
> as 'aspiration' or 'voice'). So I think the terms 'fortis-lenis' are rather
> to be used on a level of phonemic analysis. They name the distinction
> between /p, t, k/ etc. and /b, d, g/ etc., a distinction that may vary from
> language to language. It may involve length, aspiration, or voice.
I guess it might be used that way - labels, we're told, are in the final
instance arbitrary. It does, however, not solve any problems I'm aware of, and
it leaves the problems towards the solution of which fortis~lenis as a phonetic
distinction was introduced to me unsolved.

> IPA
> isn't really adequate to represent the fortis-lenis distinction, since it
> stresses the 'Frenchesque' point of view that the distinction is in the
> voicing.
If fortis~lenis isn't a phonetic distinction, the IPA _shouldn't_ represent it.
If it, as I believe, is, then there should be a way to indicate it orthogonally
to voicing (unless we want to argue that voicing isn't phonemic in _any_
language).

> >In the Germanic languages, voiced stops are generally pronounced with less
> >articulatory force than voiceless ones, and thus we say their lenis, and
> >the voiceless ones fortis. Many varieties of English, Swedish and German
> >have devoiced, wholly or partly, in some or all positions the voiced
> >stops, but thanks to the difference in "forticity" (not sure if that's a
> >word) been able to maintain the phonemic contrast even when aspiration
> >isn't at hand to disambiguate
>
> Couldn't this be a length contrast (it it's neither voice nor aspiration)?
> Or is this really an instance of that mysterious 'articlatory force'
> feature?
I believe it is. My 'lect of Swedish has lost distinctive consonant length, but
I believe I've got enough of an idea of what it sounds like to say this is not
it.

> >The most immediate explanation would seem to be that while these Finnish
> >sounds are lenis by the standards of Finnish (and apparently by those of
> >Swiss German), they're not by those of Swedish; the languages simply draw
> >the line at different points in the continuum.
>
> That's exactly how I'd explain it.
But this assumes that an "articulatory force" variable has an objective phonetic
existence.

                                                      Andreas

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