LL-L "Phonology" 2005.05.14 (05) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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From: Críostóir Ó Ciardha <paada_please at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.06.13 (09) [D]


Dear all,

I hope Ron will forgive me for opening up a new thread. Following on from
our apparently yawn-inducing to-and-fro about Canadian raising, I began to
wonder about sounds that occur only once in a language, according to a
peculiar confluence of internal sound rules and phonemic developments. I
identified three in my own tongue. (I am generally accurate at
identification of consonants, but vowels let me down.)

For instance, in my pronunciation of Nottingham English the /ttl/ in
"kettle" "mettle" "metal" "petal" "cattle" and so on is always pronounced as
a lateral fricative - i.e., as in Welsh /ll/ (X-SAMPA [K]). (This sound also
occurs word-medially in Cornish.) Within living memory the lateral fricative
was preceded by [t] but this is becoming increasingly rare. Two other sound
isolates that occur are an uvular plosive [q] in final position in "kick"
"flick" "tick" and so on, and X-SAMPA [L] (palatal lateral approximant) in
the cluster /gla/ - but not, apparen! tly, /gli/ or /gle/ - in "glass" and
"glade" "galactic" and so on. All three sound isolates occur in the nonsense
pair *galactic cattle.

The gradual running together of [t] and [l] in terminal position produced a
compromise merger and the lateral fricative. Emphasis of a heavily aspirated
[k] over time produced the uvular plosive. Running together [g] [@] and [l]
produced the palatal lateral approximant. Changes in stress appear to have
contributed strongly in all three cases.

My question to the list is: what sounds (excluding loans) occur only once in
your language / variant, according to rules similar to the above? And why do
you all think the sounds developed?

Go raibh maith agaibh,

Criostóir.

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Phonology

Críostóir (above):

> I hope Ron will forgive me for opening up a new thread.

No need to apologize, a soce, unless you genuinely bear a grudge about my
off-hand remark.  ;-)  If so, snap out of it!

> For instance, in my pronunciation of Nottingham English the /ttl/ in
> "kettle"
> "mettle" "metal" "petal" "cattle" and so on is always pronounced as a
> lateral fricative - i.e., as in Welsh /ll/ (X-SAMPA [K]).

IPA: belted "l"

This is very interesting, especially its history, which makes a lot of
sense:

(1) /l/ becomes voiceless after /t/
(2) voiceless /l/ becomes a fricative
(3) /t/ before /l/ is deleted

(1) and (2) happened in Icelandic as well, (3) in some varieties too, I
believe.

The process seems rather natural to me.

In Germany, [K] is associated with defective pronunciation of /s/ (as are
[T] and [D]), casually called a _slicker_ ['KIk3`] in the north.  I believe
it's therefore avoided.  (I had this defect for a short while as a child,
and it later turned out that I -- Mr. Parrot Head -- had simply picked it up
from a playmate I looked up to ...)

Cheers!
Reinhard/Ron

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