Re: Tsuhon: tentative phonology

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).

**Henrik