Re: k-like sounds in English and other European languages

On Oct 12, 11:09 am, Nathan Sanders <nsand...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In article
<3cf71891-3aaa-4387-a926-c686d9ddc...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,





 analys...@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Oct 12, 12:06 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Oct 11, 5:20 pm, "wugi" <b...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"Peter T. Daniels" :

On Oct 11, 3:58 am, "wugi" <b...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
And then there is the softening process due to assimilation, eg
breakdown, pron. as breagdown.

I take it that happens in your Dutch accent? It doesn't happen in
English.

... it-that ....   it-doesn't ....

I half expected such reaction, but even you will admit that the
breakdown k
would behave differently from, say, the breakthrough or breakfast or
take a
break ones...

Why? How often does regressive assimilation cross a syllable boundary?

If you'll tell me nothing at all modulates at the above syllable contacts,
well, what one doesn't want to hear one won't...

"it that" probably has the t moving forward to dental. "it doesn't"
certainly doesn't turn into "iddoesn't." It likely becomes
"i'doesn't" (with glottal).

fuhgeddaboudit Petey - you are completely wrong about this.
"breakdown" with a k-sound will break down - it is unstable.  If
someone were to say breagdown or iddoes in everyday speech I doubt
that anybody would find it noticeable.

A voiceless coda, like the [k] in "breakdown" is typically
glottalized, while a voiced coda is never glottalized.

Furthermore, a voiced coda causes the preceding vowel to be much
longer than a vowel preceding a voiceless coda.  The difference in
vowel length is so noticeable to English speakers that it allows for
distinguishing between words like "beat" and "bead" in whispered
(unvoiced) speech.

Nathan

--
Nathan Sanders
Linguistics Program
Williams Collegehttp://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

If you look at the following consonant clusters in English, it seems
to me that

(1) kt
(2) kd
(3) gt
(4) gd

Only (1) Where k can stand for (c, ck etc.) can occur in a single word
- all the others can only occur in compound words or at word
boundaries.

At first I thought kd would be difficult to maintain in speech, but
then we have smackdown and back down, attack dog etc. where the 'k'
is easy to maintain (and substituting g would stand out as poor speech
pretty obviously) and sure enough they are spelt with 'ck'.

So perhaps the 'ck' versus 'k' in spelling is not arbitrary - there
might be some phonology behind it.
.

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