LL-L "Orthography" 2010.08.06 (05) [EN]

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*L O W L A N D S - L - 06 August 2010 - Volume 06
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From: Paul Anisman <panisman at gmail.com>

Subject: LL-L "Orthography" 2010.08.06 (02) [EN]



Just to throw in my two cents re what Sandy reports as the existence of
"'knock" being pronounced as "tnock" - I'd venture to guess that it's a
progression of the original /k/ of [knak] having made its way forward from
the velar area, to become homorganic with the /n/ that follows it....and
that the "t" remains unreleased,  since it would be extremely difficult to
articulate an initial "tn" cluster without either intruding a vowel, or
without blowing out an awful lot of air for aspiration.  Guess you'd have to
stand some distance away from other folks, or they'd be in "spray city".

So - the /n/ of this "tn" cluster is preceded by a nasal release, and the
/t/ is anatomically mandated to be homorganic with the nasal that releases
it.

Of course, a good question would be--did the "kn" evolve directly into "tn"
in those Tayside dialects...or was there a "knock"> "nock">"tnock"
sequence?  Intuitively, I'd have to vote for the former, but you historical
linguist guys/gals in the gang would know lots better.

--Paul
Maryland USA



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

Subject: Orthography

Interesting point, Paul!

When I read Sandy’s post about *kn-* apparently having turned into *tn-* in
Tayside dialects my first reaction was that it was interesting but easy to
understand as dental assimilation of /k/ to /n/. But now I tried to say
/tnok/ and found that it is actually hard to pronounce unless I inserted a
“small” vowel in between. Another way is, as you suggested (I think), to
keep the tongue in the position for /n/ and pretty much simultaneously
pronounce a stop that I can only describe as “nasal stop.” It is definitely
neither a [t] nor a glottal stop but is produced in the lower nasal passage.
(There ought to be an IPA symbol for that, but I am not familiar with one.)

I doubt that it developed from /knok/ > /nok/, because then it would most
likely have affected *all* words beginning with /n/, unless we are talking
about a highly literate speaker population that was influenced by written
forms. Highly unlikely, I’d say.


Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA



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