Re: Subtitutes for English /T/ and /D/

On Jul 22, 1:48 pm, Dominic Bojarski <dominicbojar...@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
On Jul 22, 2:10 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

A) it's phonemic: free/three, brief/breath, whiff/with, fin/thin, vat/
that, fink/think, furrow/thorough, fought/thought.

In the few examples among those pairs that actually do differ only in /
T/ vs. /f/, how would communication be impaired by the substitution?

Perhaps not very much if that were the only pronunciation problem the
speaker had. However, language learners usually have a whole
constellation of pronunciation problems, each of which contributes to
the reduction in ease of communication.

As part of the constellation, the [f v] substitution does indeed
impair communication.

Evidence?

B) most native English speakers wouldn't even dream that the student
is trying to say [T D], even those who are aware that the
substitution occurs in AAVE, in which it does not occur at the
beginning of a word.

Most native English speakers are not hearing isolated wordlists when
they're interacting with other English-speakers, whether native or L2.
[f v] may be mapped close to [T D] on phonetic charts and in the
brains of some non-native speakers, but not in the brains of native
speakers. As I said, native speakers focus on the differences between
these sounds (which are small, but essential), and ignore the
similarities (which are large, but nonetheless not significant) to the
point that many are completely unaware of any similarity.

And therefore they automatically substitute the correct phoneme for
the phone that was actually uttered.

With a great deal of difficulty, if at all.

????? I suppose it's too late in your life to learn some basic
psycholinguistics?

It's not at all a natural
substitution for most native English speakers. [f v] is not a very
useful hint that the speaker meant to say [T D]. Most native speakers
would leave the sound blank and try to fill it in based on the context
rather than relying on [f v].

THAT'S THE POINT!!!!!!!!!!!
Let's say that [f v] and [T D] are 99% identical. Native speakers
naturally ignore that 99% and focus exclusively on the 1% that
distinguishes them.

Furthermore, learning to make the substitution takes far longer than
the length of an average conversation. This isn't a pure substitution,
either. First the listener has to decide whether the substitution
should be made or not.

I doubt that many unexposed native speakers would readily interpret
"vose" (those), "boaff" (both), and "maff" (math) without sufficient
context. I also doubt that many of them would fail to notice it, as
you seem to think.

Utterances do not occur "without sufficient context."

Lexical words occur more often without sufficient context than you
would think, especially in brief conversations on non-mundane topics.





Sean asked whether there were any American accents that use [f v] for
[T D]. Uneducated African-Americans often do, and this is considered
an extremely negative feature of their speech. Anyone who says 'wiff'
for 'with', or 'ax' for ask', is going to be at a disadvantage on the
labor market. It really raises hackles, including among better
educated African-Americans.

As Nathan explained, it's a lot more complicated than that.

And many, many educated African Americans have phonetic traits that
reveal their origins that they are simply unaware of -- this one
happens to have reached general consciousness.

To the point that it has become a shibboleth. It's not a matter of a
voice being recognized as African-American that is the issue, but of
the voice being recognized as uneducated. It has reached general
consciousness because it clearly stands out and sounds bizarre to non-
AAVE native speakers, few of whom are, as you said, acoustic
phoneticians.

Why do you claim it "sounds bizarre"?

Because it does. Extremely. Haven't you ever heard anyone with this
problem before? It's downright irritating.

I'm afraid that's a problem with your attitude, not with the speakers
you're denigrating.

And what attitude do you suggest that I take? Live and let live, and
let the students retain their unpleasant accents? Get real, buddy.
That's exactly what they're paying me to do. It would also be
inconsiderate of me not to reduce my accent when speaking Polish.

ALL of my native speaking agree, whether they're from the States,
Canada, Ireland, Northern Ireland, England, South Africa or Australia.

"ALL of your native speaking"? Don't you realize that if you had said
that, no one would even have noticed the mistake? People hear what you
mean to say, not your slips of the tongue.

Typo. "ALL of my native speaking colleagues". Without exception, every
single one notices it clearly and considers it a serious mistake.

They were all taken aback when they first heard Poles using this
pronunciation. Even the one from London, who has probably heard it all
his life (48 years). As a matter of fact, he's the one who had the
biggest problem with it.

Duh. That's what I've been saying all along. ONLY the "one from
London" (scil. only the Brit) is aware of and attuned to the
particular negative sociolinguistic trait of [f] for /T/.

Duh, no. ALL of them, without exception, find it objectionable.

We spend a lot of time and effort trying to break this habit, as well
as several other habits that Poles have, including:

A) using the Polish [o] sound in words like "cop", "not", "want" and
"ball", which will be heard as "cope", "note", "won't" and "bowl". The
Polish [o] sound does not exist in English, except maybe in some
marginal dialects. Convincing Poles that it doesn't is difficult,
because they "hear" it in the speech of non-American speakers. The
sounds are radically different, though.

They also hear it in the speech of American speakers, because it's
their phoneme represented by the American allophones.

No they don't. It's simply not there at all. Nor is there anything
remotely like it. Period.

They should be hearing something that is practically identical to the
Polish "a" sound (all of my American colleagues are cot-is-caught
speakers, as am I). The reason they hear "o" is because the see "o". I
grew up surrounded by Poles who learned English, but who remained
illiterate in it. They did not have this problem. In fact, their
accent, which was based almost entirely on listening, is fundamentally
different from that of my students, which is more based on familiarity
with how the word is spelled.

Try having someone read you something in which all of the "short o"
sounds have been changed to "long o" sounds and see for yourself.

Again, how is communication impaired?
B) using the Polish [a] sound in words like "cap" and " bag", which
will be heard as "cop" and "bog". The Polish sound is the same as in
the English word "father".

Again, how is communication impaired?

Because it phonemic and unnatural. Any time the listener has to fill
in the blank for a word or sound that he can't guess, it impairs
communication.

C) pronouncing "it" as "eat", and "live" as "leave". Polish has
approximately the same sounds as English. The problem is orthographic
in nature. The letter "i" is universally pronounced like "ee" in
Polish. I had the same problem in reverse when learning Polish.

Again, how is communication impaired
Millions of Spanish-speakers in the US also don't distinguish /i/
from /iy/ (or, if you insist, /I/ from /i/), and communication is not
impaired.
D) terminal devoicing, as in German. This gets tiring very fast, and
severely impedes comprehension.

Whom does it "tire"?

The listener who has to spend time and energy trying to figure out
what the speaker was trying to say. Again, it a case of first deciding
whether a substitution has to be made, and then making it. This takes
time, effort, attention and practice.



It's also typical of African American speech, and it's one of those
(unconscious)

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