Re: Phonetic contrast between lenis unvoiced and lenis voiced?

On Oct 16, 2:32 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Oct 16, 4:20 pm, "ranjit_math...@xxxxxxxxx"
<ranjit_math...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Oct 16, 10:17 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Oct 16, 1:06 pm, "ranjit_math...@xxxxxxxxx"

<ranjit_math...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
It looks like a better term than lenis unvoiced is tenuis.

But then, Armenian stops are a pain in the behind anyway.

Malayalam might be a bigger pain for learners of the high register
because pronunciation depends on etymology.

The pronunciation of intervocalic p's, depending of etymology:
lenis Dravidian /p/ -> [b] VOT <15ms
tenuis Sanskrit /p/-> [p] VOT ~25ms
fortis English /p/-> [p] VOT ~45ms
aspirated Sanskrit /ph/ -> [p<h>] VOT ~80ms

If those all contrast, then there are four phonemes and etymology is
irrelevant. (Explanatory, but irrelevant for the speaker, cf.
amygdala.)

In the case of rarely spoken words that are commonly learnt from
reading rather than from others' speech, it is based on etymology that
it's decided how to pronounce them. In written Malayalam, there's no
orthographic difference between Dravidian /p/ and Sanskritic /p/.
There's no orthographic difference between English /p/ and Dravidian /
pp/; it's because one knows /kAppi/ came from English <coffee> that
one knows to never pronounce it as [kAp:i] but only pronounce it as
[kApi]. In the high register, that is.

And what if one comes across a word where one has no idea what its
etymology is?

What do you do when you have no idea which European language a word
came from? Assumptions, often incorrect, are made resulting in the
wrong set of phonological rules being applied. Rhyming pronunciation
(Pinochet incorrectly pronounced to rhyme with ricochet) and/or
spelling pronunciation takes over (the way you decided that <brahui>
was brahooey). Thus, "tsunami" gets pronounced with a cerebral [n.]
'coz the fellow who first transliterated it figured that a nasal
after /u/ must be cerebral and "marine" gets pronounced with [aIn]
'coz the chap who first transliterated it decided that "ine" must be
[aIn].
.

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