Re: How many languages don't have "until"

On Jun 20, 6:55 pm, Hans Aberg <haberg_20080...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
analys...@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Only linguists seem to be aware
of the mild (not always consistent in
my observation - the same speaker may aspirate the same word more or
less or not at all in diferent instances) aspiration of p,t,k under a
complicated set of conditions by native AmE and BrE speakers - the
written pronunciation guide at Merriam Webster doesn't differentiate
the 'p' in 'pin' and 'spin' for example (the audio does show that only
'pin' is aspirated).
I'll bet this is a recent phenomenon along with glottal stops.  Are
there theories why these sound changes are happening in English?
Don't make stupid bets. What sound changes?
At least the English glottal stop (certainly its increased usage)
appears to be a post 20th century phenomenon (check out the thread
"big brother Br E" at aue).

Are you saying that p,t,k, have always been aspirated in English in
exactly the same environments as they are today?

They are in Swedish - same as in your "pin"-"spin" example. So if it is
an influence from Old Norse, it is indeed old. Then languages in the
same area influence each other. For example, Norwegian and
Sweden-Swedish are tonal accent languages, but Finland-Swedish is not,
an influence from Finnish, not a closely related language. So if
aspiration is dropped in the US, one theory might perhaps be that it is
an influence from other languages in that area. US English has fewer
vowels than UK English, so it might be a US preference for simplifications.

   Hans- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Everything points to it being a sound change. Th English "k(h)" that
appears in some complicatedly defined environments isn't the same
sound as the Sanskrit "kh" which occurs freely and is phonemic to
boot. Most reconstructions of "PIE" include the stop "kh" in its
sound inventory - and the British in India were mostly deaf to the
"kh" in North Indian languages -and further, using the Grimm's law
analogy of the voiced aspirates - we can safely conclude that Germanic/
Romance lost ALL aspirate stops at one time. Thats why I think it
needs to be explained why a mild non-phonemic aspiration (which is not
uniformly exhibited by all native speakers and the same speaker might
show significant variation of this phenomenon in his speech) has come
back in English but not in French.

Your Swedish data is interesting, but it would be interesting to know
if German has it and also any notions of how far back this phenomenon
has been attested, given that at least in English there cannot be
orthographic evidence for it.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Armenian, Sumerian, Burushaski, and Turkic languages
    ... aspiration in General American), ... In initial and stressed position in English, ... voiceless plosives and underlyingly voiced plosives (which are ... is much shorter than the VOT for aspirated stops in a few languages ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: How many languages dont have "until"
    ... What sound changes? ... At least the English glottal stop ... Sweden-Swedish are tonal accent languages, but Finland-Swedish is not, ... aspiration is dropped in the US, one theory might perhaps be that it is ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Armenian, Sumerian, Burushaski, and Turkic languages
    ... aspiration in General American), ... In initial and stressed position in English, ... Certainly all of the major dialects. ... voiceless plosives are aspirated not only at the ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: How many languages dont have "until"
    ... At least the English glottal stop ... an influence from Old Norse, ... Sweden-Swedish are tonal accent languages, but Finland-Swedish is not, ... aspiration is dropped in the US, one theory might perhaps be that it is ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Armenian, Sumerian, Burushaski, and Turkic languages
    ... aspiration in General American), ... In initial and stressed position in English, ... voiceless plosives and underlyingly voiced plosives (which are ... is much shorter than the VOT for aspirated stops in a few languages ...
    (sci.lang)