More on dental fricatives

[Eduard Selleslagh]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rick Mc Callister" <rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu>
Sent: Monday, November 13, 2000 4:19 PM

> /_DH_/ (edh) is the standard pronunciation for final <d>

> besides /_TH_/ theta in northern Spain

> other regional pronunciations (that I have come across) are
> /0/ in lowland Spanish /maDHri, maDHri:/
> /s/ as a hypercorrection in lowland Spanish; occasionally /S, _TH_/ in
> parts of Central America /maDHris, maDHriS/
> and /t/ in Yucatan /madrit, matrit/ but only among speakers whose native
> language was yucateco

[ moderator snip ]

[Ed Selleslagh]

This pronunciation of d as edh is quite frequent, not only in final positions,
but it is by no means arbitrary and I haven't been able yet to figure out the
rules. A very similar phenomenon is that of b being pronounced as fricative v
in certain positions (e.g. Avraham Lincoln in Spanglish), even by native
speakers who "can't" pronounce fricative v knowingly. Two cases of non-phonemic
alternate pronunciation??