Re: permissible syllable codas in major world languages)?

Oliver Cromm <lispamateur@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:bf7n641p3uox$.dlg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
* Wayne Brown wrote:
WB said:
Have a Russian pronounce the English word "tea" /
ti / for you, and you'll hear what I mean.

Oliver Cromm wrote:
Yes, but a little like /tS/, which RM was asking about. A
German may mistake it for a /tç/.

It's been shown many times that an untrained person can't hear
some sounds in a foreign language no matter how distinct they
are to the initiated. That reminds me of a conversation with
Germans who contended there was absolutely no difference in the
pronunciation of the English words "man" and "men" because they
couldn't hear any.

I would expect them to hear the difference in length, but that may
depend on the English dialect.

I guess even fewer English dialects would have noticeable
vowel length difference in the second syllables of "woman"
and "women".
pjk

Foreigners usually can't make heads or tails
out of Russian palatalized consonants so a serious observer will
surely want just to learn the correct pronunciation of a
palatalized / tʲ / rather than waste time trying to figure out
if it sounds like something else. It doesn't.

You are quite right as for advice to a language learner. My observations
are only relevant in the context of transcription.
--
WinErr 008: Erroneous error. Nothing is wrong.

.

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