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

In article
<23fe1d2f-5112-47db-ae3d-5e6acfb94244@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"ranjit_mathews@xxxxxxxxx" <ranjit_mathews@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Oct 12, 6:35 pm, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sun, 12 Oct 2008 18:01:35 -0700 (PDT),
"ranjit_math...@xxxxxxxxx" <ranjit_math...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote
in
<news:fe34a455-e9e4-41c6-a369-722201a50e61@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
in sci.lang:

On Oct 12, 5:28 pm, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"ranjit_math...@xxxxxxxxx" <ranjit_math...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in
In "wick" vs. "wig", is voicing the ONLY difference?
No. As Nathan has mentioned at least twice in this thread,
the vowel preceding the voiced stop is longer.
That was the vowel [i]. How about [@]? Does it come in different
lengths?

What is the relevance?

Does every vowel, including [@] come with such different non-phomemic
length distinctions?

The allophonic lengthening is definitely triggered in stressed
syllables. In unstressed syllables, I think the lengthening still
occurs, but not to the same extent: "duchess" and "Dutch's" seem to me
to differ in more than just voicing of the final consonant, but I'd
want to do see some phonetic measurements to verify statistical
significance.

Nathan

--
Nathan Sanders
Linguistics Program
Williams College
http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/
.

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