taking poll on pronunciation

Fri Jul 2 17:17:28 UTC 2010

Dear Rich,
The relevant issue with English stress placement, according to Chomsky and Halle (1968), is whether the syllable is heavy (i.e., a heavy syllable is a closed syllable or a syllable containing a phonologically long/tense vowel).  In nouns the antepenultimate
syllable is stressed if the penultimate syllable is short and open (as in MI-se-ry or PRI-so-ner); and otherwise stress falls on the penult, as in ve-RAN-da or ho-RI-zon (where -RAN- and -RI- are both heavy syllables).
 So perhaps the English stress rule may explain why Americans say "pi-ROZH-ki" in Russian ("ROZH" being a closed syllable). But since Russian has no phonologically long vowels, it is really hard to say why Americans say "GOR-ba-chev" (interpreting 'ba' as a light syllable) versus "sha-ra-PO-va" (interpreting 'po' as a heavy syllable). I think the transfer of the English stress rule into Russian is a really complicated issue, and what one needs to know here is how exactly Americans transfer the notion of English phonological length into Russian, where this category is not phonological.

Nila

________________________________
From: Richard Robin <rrobin at GWU.EDU>
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Sent: Fri, July 2, 2010 8:39:53 AM
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] taking poll on pronunciation

Specialists in English phonology will correct me, but isn't the English
default stress on a four-syllable noun composed of open syllables on the
penultimate? As in

Manitoba
Colorado
propaganda
panorama
emphysema
   plus the assigned place of stress for most place names of native American
origin, regardless of language of origin.

Exceptions to this tendency, like amygdala and Kalamazoo, *sound** *like
exceptions. So Sharapóva and Borodíno obey that rule.

On the other hand, Americans have always had both stress and vowel problems
with Russian names containing ё, probably, as Hugh McLean said, because of
the transliteration, but also no doubt because word-final stress in nouns
(as in -ёв last names) is so rare in English. So Khrúshchev was Khrushchóv
only on the lips of President Kennedy and NBC's Chet Huntley. Gorbachev
defaulted to initial stress, although a few talking heads insisted on
Gorbáchev.

Finally, I would add that the hardest vocabulary item for my own beginning
students is the last name of our program's course coordinator, Shatalina,
which students insist on rhyming with Catalina, even well into middle of
first year.

So how did Anna Karenina survive with her name intact?

-Richard Robin

On Thu, Jul 1, 2010 at 12:56 PM, Hugh McLean <hmclean at berkeley.edu> wrote:

> John Dunn is doubtless right that the Casanova model is responsible for
> SharapOva, though I wonder why such English models as intErrogate,
> regUrgitate, infUriate are ignored. In any case, the mindless provincialism
> of American TV sports announcers is especially noticeable during the
> Wimbledon broadcasts. Yesterday we had Berdych consistently pronounced
> burr-ditch by the American announcers and commentators, even though the
> official referee was doing a very good job of bear-dikh, with an excellent
> velar fricative for the Czech ch.
>
> Shame! Let's infuriate!
>
> Hugh McLean
>
>> As it happens, I have of late been contemplating the rules by which
>> English speakers assign stress to unfamiliar Russian names.  In the instance
>> of Borodino, two rules would seem to be relevant.
>>
>> The first is that final stress is generally avoided.  There are exceptions
>> to this with some two-syllable names, particularly if they are
>> transliterated according to French norms (as used to be the practice for
>> passports and the like), but final stress does not appear to occur
>> spontaneously with longer names.
>>
>> The second rule is that English prefers to avoid sequences of more than
>> two unstressed syllables.  With four-syllable names there are thus two
>> options, and while it is my impression that the second syllable is the
>> 'default' (if there is one), the actual assignment appears to depend on the
>> shape of the word.  I am sure that a previous correspondent is correct in
>> suggesting that BoroDIno is prompted by Italian patterns such as ValenTIno,
>> just as the pattern CasaNOva is probably responsible for stress assignments
>> of the SharaPOva type.
>>
>> John Dunn.
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Kevin Windle <kevin.windle at ANU.EDU.AU>
>> To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
>> Date: Mon, 17 May 2010 13:27:33 +1000
>> Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] taking poll on pronunciation
>>
>> In my experience as a Brit living in Australia, speakers in the UK and
>> Australia will pronounce BorodINo with exactly the stress preferred in North
>> America, i.e. primary stress on the third syllable and a weaker one on the
>> first. Stressing the last syllable seems unnatural to most speakers of
>> English. It may actually render the name unrecognizable to them, forcing
>> those who do know Russian to shift the stress to the penult when speaking
>> English. Much the same thing happens with Vladivostok. English-speakers will
>> generally place the stress on the penult.
>>
>> Kevin Windle,
>>
>>
>> John Dunn
>> Honorary Research Fellow, SMLC (Slavonic Studies)
>> University of Glasgow, Scotland
>>
>> Address:
>> Via Carolina Coronedi Berti 6
>> 40137 Bologna
>> Italy
>> Tel.: +39 051/1889 8661
>> e-mail: J.Dunn at slavonic.arts.gla.ac.uk
>> johnanthony.dunn at fastwebnet.it
>>
>>
>> John Dunn
>> Honorary Research Fellow, SMLC (Slavonic Studies)
>> University of Glasgow, Scotland
>>
>> Address:
>> Via Carolina Coronedi Berti 6
>> 40137 Bologna
>> Italy
>> Tel.: +39 051/1889 8661
>> e-mail: J.Dunn at slavonic.arts.gla.ac.uk
>> johnanthony.dunn at fastwebnet.it
>>
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-- 
Richard M. Robin, Ph.D.
Director Russian Language Program
The George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052
202-994-7081
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Russkiy tekst v UTF-8

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