Re: Greek "y" vs "u"

>On Sun, 15 Jan 2006 16:44:31 +0100, Ruud Harmsen
><realemailseesite13@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>The English "soft" th (as in "the", "that") etc. is more like a stop,

Sun, 15 Jan 2006 22:00:04 +0100: Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@xxxxxx>: in
sci.lang:
>Not in standard pronunciation.

Perhaps you're right. It could be that I have that impression because
most Dutch speakers trying to speak English do usually render /T/
correctly, but give up on /D/ and replace it by [d]. (I don't,
usually, always, sometimes, I hope ...).

German would use [z] in the same situation. But see below.

>>while the Greek sound is more like fricative (spirant). But because
>>full closure is difficult at that place of articulation, there is
>>little difference between them. I know of no language that has both as
>>separate phonemes.
>
>Which phonemes are you talking about? Modern Greek
>certainly distinguishes /d/ and /D/ (e.g. dínw /'Dino/ "I
>give" vs. ntúnomai /'dinome/ "I get dressed".

You have a point there.
I think it makes a difference which point of articulation exactly we
are talking about.

1) Tip of tongue against the upper inside of the upper front teeth,
where they meet the gums or slightly above.
2) Tip of tongue against the lower inside of the upper front teeth,
still high enough to avoid the tip of the tongue becoming visible.
3) Tip of tongue against the bottom of the upper front teeth, so it is
visible. Between lower and upper teeth, literally "interdental".

With 1) it very well possible to distinguish between stop and
fricatives. It is probably what happens in Greek, Spanish, etc.. I
agree that /t/, /d/ *), /T/ and /D/ are dental in Greek.,
(*) [d] used to be an allophone of /t/, but later became phonemic,
through loans, and the dissapearance of the /n/ that turned /t/ in to
/d/).

3) Is probably exaggerated, used only to teach non-English speaker how
to master its /T/ and /D/.

With 2) and 3) the difference between stops and spirants may be
difficult, because (depending of personal physical peculiarities) the
teeth don't fully close the airways. The same is true when not quite
at 2) but still a long way from 1).

The English /T/ and /D/ are probably mostly in between 1) and 2)? And
perhaps so are the Greek ones.

It is still my impression, considering that between 1) and 2) a full
stop (pun failed) may be difficult, Greek is still farther away from a
stop than English.

When I try something like Modenr Greek "to dhendro" with both the t
and the dh at 2), the t seems to lose to much air. At 1) it works
better, or with t at 1), and dh at 2) or between 1) and 2).
But of course native speakers (I don't speak Greek at all, can only
pronounce some isolated words) may disagree.

>>Likewise, a labiodental stop would be difficult to distinguish from
>>labiodental fricatives (f, v), and no language as far as I know gas
>>them.
>
>Ladefoged and Maddieson report a Shubi speaker using a
>labio-dental stop (although for other speakers the same
>phoneme is a bilabal-labiodental affricate).

Fascinating.

--
Ruud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com

.

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