For words ending in "-ity" is it ~t or ~d

[Paul Johnston]

I take your point--I just tried making one.  I hear fricative noise
all through it, but it does sound like there are momentary points of
contact.  I also guess you can make a uvular tap of sorts--I've tried
shortening an [R] and it seems possible--now, that you might get in
languages, but unless some exotic North Caucasian language has a tap/
trill contrast there, certainly not a separate phoneme.  Maybe one of
my Northumbrian informants for my Ph. D. had one, along with trills,
fricatives, and rounded and unrounded approximants, come to think of
it....

Paul Johnston
On Jun 17, 2007, at 10:54 PM, Mark Mandel wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: For words ending in "-ity" is it ~t or ~d
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>
> I have sworn off arguing with Mr. Zurinskas, but somewhat aslant of
> this
> topic I'll say that a velar *trill* is possible though difficult. I
> doubt
> that any real language uses it, but I took the alien interjection
> "Kkkkkkkk!" (in C.J. Cherryh's Chanur books) as a challenge, purely
> for
> fannish linguistic fun. By tightening the tongue muscle just
> posterior to
> the place of articulation and using more pulmonic force than is
> normal, it
> is possible to trill the body of the tongue at the velum or the
> hard palate.
>
> m a m
>
> On 6/16/07, Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at wmich.edu> wrote:
>>
>> As someone trained in  phonetics:  "K-flap"???? That part of the back
>> of the tongue can't flap.  Do you mean a velar fricative?  Or a
>> uvular trill?  Say what?
>>
>
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