Re: Hindi and Farsi counting words are identical

ranjit_mathews_at_yahoo.com
Date: 02/02/05 

Date: 1 Feb 2005 21:53:01 -0800

Miguel Carrasquer wrote:
> On 1 Feb 2005 17:57:40 -0800, "ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com"
> <ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >English /I/ has its most
> >centralised realization in words like "ripper", "grip", etc.; I
can't
> >tell ANY difference between the [I] in these words and the second
<I>
> >in kIrIk.
>
> There is a difference, but the major clues lie in the
> neighbouring consonants. Turkish /i/ is usually centralized
> [I], like English /I/,

I pegged it for an [i] rather than an [I]; I remember Turks saying
<istanbul>, <izmir> and <taksim>. Perhaps it had to do with their
degree of centralization.

> and Turkish /i-/ is also centralized
> [I-] (like some varieties of English /I/ or /V/). The
> difference is subtle, but /i/ is clearly surrounded by
> palatalized consonants, /i-/ by plain/velarized ones, and
> that's very easy to pick up.

I too find it easy to pick up the difference between Turkish /i/ &
/i-/. What I was having trouble picking up was the difference between
Turkish /i-/ and English /I/; this discussion started because I
discerned English [I]s in <sarnIcI>, the second further back than the
first (I discern the upsilon in a Greek's Cyril as [I] too - [kIril]).
The 3 alternate explanations for the misdiscernment, that come to mind
are:
1) my ear is incapable of detecting a significant difference between
[I] and [u-].
2) my English /I/ is pronounced midway between [I] & [u-] rather than
as an IPA [I].
3) my idiolect's /I/ has allophones ranging from [I] to [u-], just like
my /V/ has allophones [a"], [V"] and [V].

> So <kIrIk> is [qI-rI-q], <kiris,> is [k'Ir'Is^] and <kürek>
> is [k'Yr'Ek'], approximately.

Thank you. Most illuminating. BTW, I resolved my "palatal conundrum"
from your earlier explanation about tongue blade versus tongue tip. For
brevity, I won't detail the conundrum, but the explanation was that my
"palatal" <c> has allophones [q] & [c] (both in Pinyin notation since
ASCII IPA doesn't have multiple affricates), the true palatal [q] being
used adjacent to front vowels and the allophone [c] being used adjacent
to back vowels.
> =======================
> Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
> mcv@wxs.nl

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