SPORTS ON NY RADIO by David Halberstam; Encarta Dictionary

[Dennis R. Preston]

Don't be confused. Of course Spanish has a velar fricatrive. I'm trying to
figure out what the guy heard that made him say "hard." I doubt if it was
the Spanish sound. The English affricate sound was what I referred to.
Maybe he heard a Hispanic person say the affricate and was misled. But I
still suspect "hard" means the stop; then I guess we really don't know
what's up, unless the guy's Spanish is so bad that he thinks the affricate
is English and the stop is Spanish.

dInIs

>In a message dated 9/21/1999 8:19:11 PM, preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU writes:
>
><< Yeah. But what did he hear (if anything) which made him say "hard _G_"? An
>earlier response suggested that the affricate might qualify as "hard" in
>English. Think so?
>
>dInIs >>
>
>I'm confused. Wouldn't the /g/ in the Spanish pronunciation be a velar
>FRICATIVE (not an affricate)? And wouldn't a velar sound like a "hard G" to
>an English-speaker? As opposed to the "soft G" of .e.g.,  WEDGEY (i.e., the
>English voiced affricate)?

Dennis R. Preston
Professor of Linguistics
Department of Linguistics and Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
preston at pilot.msu.edu
Office: (517)353-0740
Fax: (517)432-2736