Re: /S/ /Z/ /tS/ etc.


Ruud Harmsen wrote:
d2 Sep 2006 08:29:39 -0700: "Peter T. Daniels"
<grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxx>: in sci.lang:

Sleep on. It get the strong impression you are denying the obvious
only because I brought it up.

If it's so obvious, howcome no phonetician has ever commented on this
alleged "national" trait before?

Because it isn't phonemic?

+ Phoneticians don't do phonemics.

Because not evertbody does it?

+ Phoneticians are interested in individual variation.

Because it may be recent?

+ Phoneticians are continually making observations and writing about
them.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has it, and he is a very successful
environmental attorney -- and radio broadcaster.

That only proves other Americans don't dislike it. I never said they
do.

No, it proves that people with congenital creaky voice can succeed in
spite of it.

Did I say otherwise?

Yes, you said it proves that Americans don't dislike it. It's entirely
possible that he can have a successful career as an activist and a
broadcaster with a voice people dislike.

Just to be sure, is:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/audio/nwspeak/cm_creaky_apartment.mp3
the same as the kind of creaky voice you mean? It is what I mean. If
your own computer isn't sound equipped, could you borrow one for a

And where, praytell, would I "borrow a computer for a moment"?

moment that is? Just to know if we're talking about the same thing.
What I mean is much more frequent among young women, and the two
examples you mentioned, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Mandy Patinkin are
men (and possibly not so young? I didn't check).

Patinkin is the same age as me (he went to school on the South Side of
Chicago with a friend of mine); I think Kennedy is slightly younger
than me, i.e. your age.

I don't often hear "young women" except on TV and occasionally radio,
and I certainly don't notice creaky voice; though I can perform it
myself on demand.

It is of course an essential phonetic feature of Burmese, and I may
have learned to do it from R. B. Jones, Jr., in Comparative
Reconstruction class at Cornell. If not, then it waited until Phonetics
with Dale Terbeek (a student of Ladefoged's) at Chicago.

.