Re: Articulation of /s/ in baths

Tue, 04 Apr 2006 12:26:26 GMT: "Peter T. Daniels"
<grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>: in sci.lang:

Ruud Harmsen wrote:

Tue, 4 Apr 2006 01:25:55 +0200: "Ekkehard Dengler"
<ED-RS@xxxxxxxxxxx>: in sci.lang:

Tagesschau.
Do you mean that "Tagesschau" is equally difficult to pronounce /

It is for me, because in Dutch [S] is more or less just an assimilated
[sj] and hardly a phoneme in its own right. So [s] and [S] cannot
occur adjacently. If the do in some other language, I have a problem.

More evidence that you don't understand what "phoneme" means.

OK, I know we don't agree on that. To me it shows that we both know
very well what "phoneme" means, but that I see it as a useful model of
thinking which sometimes limps (I'm translating the Dutch expression
"mank gaan" now, "fall short" in real English, says my dictionary)
when applied to real-life situations and language. You also see it as
a model of thinking, I suppose, but you assume the real world fully
adheres to it, or can me mo(u)lded to adhere, or simply MUST adhere.

In the context of your particular analysis of Standard Dutch or of your
dialect, it is either /S/ or /sj/, one or the other, not both, depending
on how it fits the system. If the system has clusters with palatals,
then maybe /sj/ is the better analysis. If this would be the only one,
then maybe /S/ is better. But you MUST pick one analysis, and you MUST
be able to justify it.

If I remember correctly, in all original Dutch words in which <sj>
occurs <s> and <j> are in different syllables, mostly noun +
diminutive suffix -je.
In all words where they aren't, <sj> is initial, and due to loans from
either Frisian or Yiddish/Hebrew.
Probably not relevant in your view of phoneme analysis. It is in mine.

Cf. http://rudhar.com/foneport/en/noteport.htm#Note5

or are you
complaining about somebody's articulation?

AFAIK, native speakers of German always do this flawlessly.
I think such combinations also occur in English.

[Ss] is now not hard for me at all (due to practising it in
Portuguese?), but [sS] still is. Even [s] and [S] further apart in a
word tend to easily assimilate in my speech. Cf. s and th, like in
words such as "something", which (even in my English, if I don't pay
attention) may become "thumb-thing" of "some sing".

Native speakers of English never do that.

Of course, that was my point. I hardly do either, not surprising,
because I have been dealing with English for over 80% of my life,
approx. since age 10 (I can't exactly remember). But when tired,
nervous, stressed, careless etc. I may slip into making such mistakes,
which native speakers would never make. So, assuming that a non-native
but reasonable mastery of a language is also a language, are /T/ and
/s/ separate phonemes in my personal kind of English, if I nearly
always neatly keep them apart, but sometimes don't?
In your view of what phonemes are, this is not a question, but a clear
yes or no. So what is it?

Mind you, I no longer find "Henry the XI's thrown" particularly
difficult anymore, after a lot of pratcice (many years ago). I can
easily say that five times in a row, and (if nobody listens and there
is no pressure and no nerves) 5 times correctly.

Yet another problem:
We probably agree that in modern English /D/ and /T/ are separate
phonemes. (I won't repeat the "thus" discussion. now)
AFAIK, it is also an agreed-upon fact that they were allophones in
Old-English. Now assuming there has been a gradual change from OE to
Modern English, I think according to your view of phonemes:

1) we should be able to point at an exact year when these two became
phonemes, although they weren't before. We can't, because we don't
have enough evidence. But if there were enough tape recordings from
the Middle Ages, we could make that decision.

or:
2) There has been an intermediate period, of say 50 or 100 years, in
which two English languages existed, one with separate phonemes /D/
and /T/, and another with a single phoneme with allophones [D] and
[T]. Some people spoke one language, others spoke the other. The
languages were so close that speakers could understand each other.
Some people spoke both, and sometimes switched between sentences, or
even within sentences.
(Cf. Argentinian Spanish tango songs, in which the same singer
sometimes prouncounces final /s/ as [s], sometimes as [h], Sometimes
as [X], sometimes as nothing, sometimes as something in between the
last three.

or:
3) There was an intermediate period of say 50 or 100 years, or even
much longer, in which there was a single English language, in which a
single phoneme gradually developed into two. In that intermediate
stage it was hard to tell if they were really separate. It is hard to
say when exactly that periode started or ended, and it would still be
hard even if we had had lots of tape recordings from that period.

I think 3) is much more plausible. But in your view of phonemes, it is
impossible, if I understand you correctly. So is the model wrong, or
should we change reality to make it fit?


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

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Linguistic Predictions II
    ... And those hypothetical extraterrestrials (in a real easy international language they would simply be called "outside-earthers") would really be astonished if they found people speaking the same language in places that had until recently little or no contact with each other. ... School life would have been easier if they would not have insisted on me trying to speak English like the people of England did. ... English grammar is not that easy if you take syntax into account, and as for pronunciation, English has a rather large set of phonemes and many can appear in combinations that are difficult to ... Moreover, its writing system has no diacritical points as in some languages which make them difficult to use, pronounce and communicate in writing. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Not just computer language
    ... If the tourists to the Netherlands behave as you describe then that shows ... the language of this newsgroup is English. ... If so, did you learn Dutch? ...
    (microsoft.public.dotnet.languages.vb)
  • Re: Bedrading elektrische stoel naast de bestuurder
    ... up Dutch and Deutsch?? ... The English probably stuck to that old term. ... The German and Dutch languages are clearly from the same roots. ... I used to know a Dutch/German couple who just spoke to each other in their own language. ...
    (alt.auto.mercedes)
  • Re: OT: Why welfare doesnt work!
    ... frightened of hiring adults who had had to drop out of work - for ... Full immersion is the only way to learn a language properly. ... I learned Dutch that way, ... respond in English for the first year we were there - and some still ...
    (sci.electronics.design)
  • Re: Not just computer language
    ... this newsgroup has an international participantship. ... the language of this newsgroup is English. ... Seeing as how the medium of this newsgroup is written, I don't really care how fluent someone is or isn't, as the case may be, in spoken English. ... You say you would have made the effort to make yourself understood in Dutch. ...
    (microsoft.public.dotnet.languages.vb)