Re: y sound

John Cowan <cowan@...> writes:
> David Barrow scripsit:
> > fabol?  fabor maybe, but fabol? I'm not aware of any Spanish speaker who would
> > confuse l and r
> Definitely.  I suspect the last sound is either [w] or [a] with the
> non-syllabic diacritic (inverted breve below), like German "-r".
Ask a Spanish speaker to write the common word for "polystyrene"
in Spanish. I've seen all of "tergopor", "tergopol" and "telgopor"
(and I don't know which is right). Maybe the common pattern of
dissimulation of final /r/ -> /l/ shows that this confusion is
very old (I remember "mármol" and "árbol" but I'm sure there
are more).

I'd say John is right with the non-syllabic [a]; [w] doesn't
sound right. In any case, neither of those in my dialect, which
keeps its /l/'s well-marked but tends to completely drop final
/r/'s.


--Pablo Flores
  http://www.angelfire.com/scifi2/nyh/index.html
  "Your freedom justifies our war."
    (Niccolò Macchiavelli -- slightly paraphrased.)

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