LL-L "Phonology" 2003.02.25 (04) [D/E]

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From: Gustaaf Van Moorsel <gvanmoor at aoc.nrao.edu>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2003.02.24 (13) [D/E]

Stan Levinson wrote:

> Nederlandssprekenden:
> Ik was iets aan het lezen, toen er me iets heel
> vreemds opviel.  Na ja, het vreemde is dat ik er nooit
> eerder aan heb gedacht.  Het gaat om spellingregels,
> (mijn blijkbaar verkeerde) uitspraak en het werkwoord
> "waarschuwen".  Ik heb altijd gedacht dat het "waar -
> schuu - wen" wordt uitgesproken, en dat denk ik nog.
> Maar ik heb ineens besefd dat de vormen "waarschuwt"
> and "gewaarschuwd" een beetje vreemd zijn, en nou weet
> ik niet hoe ik zie moet uitspreken.  Ik veronderstelde
> "waar-schuu-vt" en "ge-waar-schuu-vt" om het zonder
> fonetische tekens aan te duiden.  Maar als het zo
> wordt uitgesproken, dan wijkt het af van de spelling
> regels.  Where am I going wrong?  Help.

Ik denk dat je gelijk hebt: het is een afwijking van de
regels.  De 'u' in 'waarschuw' wordt eender uitgesproken
als die in 'waarschuwen', hoewel volgens de spellingsregels
je 'waarschuuw' zou verwachten.  Hetzelfde geldt voor andere
werkwoorden die eindigen op 'uwen', zoals 'duwen', 'stuwen',
en 'luwen'.  Mijn enige verklaring is dat 'uw' wordt gezien
als een diphtong in analogie met 'ij', waarin de tweede let-
ter niet meer als een medeklinker wordt gezien.

Het eenvoudigste en meest voorkomende voorbeeld is waar-
schijnlijk het bezittelijke voornaamwoord 'uw', dat als
'uuw' wordt uitgesproken.

Gustaaf

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From: Ruud Harmsen <rh at rudhar.com>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2003.02.24 (13) [D/E]

Stan Levinson <stlev99 at yahoo.com>:

>Nederlandssprekenden:
>Ik was iets aan het lezen, toen er me iets heel
>vreemds opviel.  Na ja, het vreemde is dat ik er nooit
>eerder aan heb gedacht.  Het gaat om spellingregels,
>(mijn blijkbaar verkeerde) uitspraak en het werkwoord
>"waarschuwen".  Ik heb altijd gedacht dat het "waar -
>schuu - wen" wordt uitgesproken, en dat denk ik nog.

En het is ook juist.

>Maar ik heb ineens besefd dat de vormen "waarschuwt"
>and "gewaarschuwd" een beetje vreemd zijn,

Inderdaad. Het was me nooit opgevallen, maar het is zo. De
regelmatige spellingen zou "waarschuuwt" en "gewaarschuuwd" moeten
zijn.
Maar vergelijk "uw" (het bezittelijk voornaamwoord bij "u", ook dat
klinkt als uuw. Ook ruw, luw, baljuw, allemaal uitgesproken met de
klank van uuw. Er is kennelijk een spellingsregel die zegt dat uuw
altijd als uw wordt geschreven. Dat kan ook omdat de uitspraak uw,
met de korte u van "dus", in het Nederlands (bij mijn weten) nooit
voortkomt.

>en nou weet
>ik niet hoe ik zie moet uitspreken.  Ik veronderstelde
>"waar-schuu-vt" en "ge-waar-schuu-vt" om het zonder
>fonetische tekens aan te duiden.

Waarschuuwt en gewaarschuuwt. De w assimilieert niet, omdat het geen
schuurklank (fricatief) is, maar een approximant.

R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>:
>I remember that one of the striking features I perceived in Dutch
>pronunciation (and in Dutch "accents" in German) already as a child
was that
>many or most speakers did not pronounce their /s/ "sharp" the way
we did but
>rather with the tip of their tongues a little retracted.

Possible, but I never noticed that.

>Sure, today's Dutch abounds with English and French loans, and this
includes
>words with /š/ and /ž/, thus is a case of foreign-induced distinction
>between /s/ and /š/ and /z/ and /ž/.  I have been trying to
listen closely
>to English and German spoken by Dutch speakers and found the respective
>phonetic distinctions to be weak to non-perceptible.

True. But I see the "problem" more in the sj (sh, sch, etc.) than in
the s: Dutch people pronounce sj as /sj/, not /S/. To them (me) that
is the same thing, (more on the difficulties that causes:
http://rudhar.com/foneport/noteport.htm#Note13 )
although in many other languages, such as French, they are very
different.

More on this:
http://rudhar.com/fonetics/shs/shs.htm

>In other words, many speakers of Dutch (especially of the
>Hollandic areas) pronounce their /s/ and their voiced equivalent
>/z/ as apicoalveolar fricatives rather than as dental or alveodental
> [s] / [z].

[...]

>Now, the Northern Castilian ("Spanish") apicoalveolar pronunciation
of /s/
>is often explained to English speakers as being similar to the
pronunciation
>of /s/ among speakers of Southern Scotland and among older speakers of
>Midlands dialects of the United States of America.

Even if they are both apicoalveolar (I always find these term
difficult myself), the Spanish does seem "strange" or "special" to
Dutch speakers too. So they're not the same.

>One person that immediately comes to
>mind is the actor Sean Connery, whose "funny s" is a tasty morsel for
>impressionists.

Yes! Now that you mention it, isn't this sound also used in Wales,
and in Northern Ireland English? I think the character in BBC series
"Cold feet" who is from there, has that sound.

>I don't think I
>have ever heard the <w> (in Dutch the labiodental glide [Ã <],

North of the rivers, and only when starting a syllable. At the end
of a syllable, and always south of the rivers, it is bilabial,
somewhat like a Spanish b/v between vowels. More on this:
http://rudhar.com/fonetics/fvw.htm

>as in
>Indo-Aryan varieties) really pronounced in _waarschuwen_

It is pronounced, sometimes bilabially, sometimes labiodentally. In
the latter case, seen as start of next syllable, in the former as
end of the syllable with the u.

>and _vrouwen_.

Here it is merely a spelling convention. If the spellings were vrou
and vrouen (of vrau and vrauen) the pronunciation would no be any
different.
--
http://rudhar.com

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From: Theo Homan <theohoman at yahoo.com>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2003.02.24 (13) [D/E]

> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Phonology
>
> Lowlanders,
>
> Our recent discussion about Dutch <sch> reminded me
> of something only
> vaguely related that I have been wanting to submit
> for discussion.
>
> I remember that one of the striking features I
> perceived in Dutch pronunciation (and in Dutch
"accents" in German)already as a child was that
> many or most speakers did not pronounce their /s/
> "sharp" the way we did but rather with the tip of
their tongues a little retracted.  In other words,
> many speakers of Dutch (especially of the Hollandic
> areas) pronounce their /s/ and their voiced
equivalent /z/ as apicoalveolar fricatives rather than
> as dental or alveodental [s] / [z].  I suppose the
> IPA symbols for the apicoalveolar variants are
"curly-tailed" esh ([Ã ?])and yogh ([Ã "]), or these
> are at least close to them.

Ron,

Just a small note [your article was well elaborated; I
hope the readers will respond and work it out
seriously] . You started my memory to work:

Once I met an American phonetician whose name I didn't
know yet, and he came to my table and asked where I
came from. He heard that my 'phonetician s' was of a
sort that was not easy to find the world round, and he
asked me why I produced the s like that, and he tried
to convince me to use 'a normal s' as normal westerns
do. I convinced him that my 'phonetician s' was a
normal s, just a normal Dutch s [although my s is
sharper than let's say the Haarlem or Den haag s].

Since then I have been very proud on my s, and I use
it whenever necessary.

vr. gr. Theo Homan

----------

From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at scotstext.org]
Subject: "Phonology"

> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Phonology
>
> mind is the actor Sean Connery, whose "funny s" is a tasty morsel for
> impressionists.  Just a sec!  I looked up Connery's biography and
> found that
> he was born in the Fountainbridge district of Edinburgh.  That would be in
> the Lothians and wouldn't qualify as "Southern Scotland," would it?  But
> were did he grow up?  (I know that he joined the Navy in his early teens.)

Sean worked as a carpenter with my great uncle Tommy
so I think it's safe to say that he spoke Lothian Scots -
it's hard to imagine someone speaking anything else in a
"jiners' shop" with other Scots speakers, especially that
far back.

> Anyway, if this apicoalveolar option is used for /s/, then this would beg
> the question how those speakers distinguish it from // (e.g., "sip" from
> "ship"), given that both phonemes are native in Scots and English?  Is the
> // retracted?  Is the distinction accepted as minimal?

I describe this in my blurb on Lothian Scots on
"Lowlands Talk" as a retroflex R though "apicoalveolar"
seems an apt description. Here it is
(from http://www.lowlands-l.net/talk/eng/scots_lothian.htm):

"A characteristic consonant in Lothian Scots is the
“retroflex R” which is heard when “R” occurs after
“TH”, “T” or “D”. The tongue is curled back so that
the “R” sounds as a particularly tense, protracted
sibilant. This results in “three” sounding somewhat
like “shree”, “tree” like “tshree” and “dree” like
“jree”."

This is why Jeemie in the story describes himself as
being in "primary shree".

Sandy
http://scotstext.org/

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