Danish Spelling

Lars Henrik Mathiesen thorinn at diku.dk
Tue Dec 19 08:34:16 UTC 2000


> From: "David L. White" <dlwhite at texas.net>
> Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 13:14:43 -0600

> Danish does not use the sort of spellings I said it does. The source
> of my error, upon examination, is a "phonetic" transcription of
> Danish (which can hardly be right), not actual Danish spelling.

And why can't that phonetic spelling be right? Danish has no voiced
stops --- to the first approximation, at least, though I've been told
that instruments will show some voicing in some contexts.

But assume for the argument that the facts are like this: In absolute
initial position, /ptk/ are aspirated voiceless and /bdg/ are plain
voiceless. In all other positions, including after /s/, you find only
plain voiceless stops. (The symbols are assigned historically --- the
Danish distinction maps very well onto German unvoiced/voiced stops,
for instance).

Which phoneme do those plain voiceless stops belong to? They sound
exactly like the /bdg/ you get in initial position. They don't sound
like initial /ptk/. So why shouldn't <stave> (spell) be /sda:u/?

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn at diku.dk> (Humour NOT marked)



More information about the Indo-european mailing list