Re: Tsuhon: tentative phonology

Henrik Theiling wrote:
>Weiben Wang <wwang@...> writes:
> > There are minimal pairs in which the only difference is voicing:
> >
> > fahren (unvoiced)
> > waren  (voiced)
> >
> > Does that help?
> >
> > -Weiben
> > > > I'm thinking that the phonemic difference between German /f/ and /v/
>is
> > > > fortis vs lenis, not unvoiced vs voiced. Don't take my word for it
>tho' -
> > > > perhaps you know some German phonetician you could ask?
> > >
> > > To clarify: one is pronounced more forcefully than the other?
> > > Could be...it sounds like it could be right, but I haven't heard a
> > > fluent/native speaker of German in quite a long time.  D'you know, I'm
> > > still on good terms with my German TA from last semester.  I'll drop
>her
> > > an email and ask if she knows, or knows where I can find out.  :-)
>
>I learnt [f] and [v] for /f/ and /v/ in German.  So I suppose [v_0] is
>an allophone of /v/ in `schwitzen' /"SvIts@n/ ["Sv_0Itsn=].
>
>And I pronounce the above:
>
>In dialect:
>   [fa:n]
>   [va:n]
>
>In clearer pronunciation:
>   ["fa:Rn=]
>   ["va:Rn=]
>
>R is a uvular voiced fricative which is very lax.  (I never do a
>uvular trill.  It's actually not even easy.)
>
>/v/ is more lax than /f/ (and, of course, voiced).
For the record, I'm perfectly aware that High German /f/ and /v/ are usually
realized as unvoiced and voiced respectively. However, as far as I can tell,
/f/ is also more strong, fortis, than /v/. I base this on, among other
things, that /Sv/ in 'schwarz' etc goes accross tomeas /Sv/, not /Sf/, which
it should if voicing was the only difference. Being a Swede, my
unconsciousness invokes the Swedish rule that [Sv_0] is /Sv/.

And if [v_0] is an allophone of /v/, not of/f/, then it would seem that is
fortis vs lenis rather than unvoiced vs voiced that's the phonemic
difference.

As for the 'fahren' vs 'waren' example, AFAICT there isn't simple unvoiced
vs voiced distinction, but a more complex unvoiced fortis vs voiced lenis.

                                                 Andreas
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