More on dental fricatives

[Eduard Selleslagh]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Larry Trask" <larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Sent: Monday, November 13, 2000 1:24 PM

> Ed Selleslagh writes:

> [on final /d/ in European Spanish]

>> On the other hand, I often hear an edh in 'Madrid', 'laúd' etc. Or is
>> there something wrong with my hearing ?

> No; this is the more widespread pronunciation in Spain.  But it is
> not the pronunciation used in the north, in and around the Basque
> Country, where theta is usual.

[Ed]

OK, I had overlooked that in your comment.

> [on Spanish final /d/ as theta taken into Basque]

>> Probably they are just using the Spanish pronunciation. The same thing
>> happens with English computer terms in Western languages.

> Yes, but the curious thing is that they accept phonetic theta when
> it represents Spanish /d/, but not when it represents Spanish theta.

[Ed]

I would guess that this is because in Castilian theta (written as c or z) is
considered a sibilant of sorts. In the Americas it is pronounced /s/ anyway.

>> Note that there are virtually no monolingual Basques left, so the necessity
>> to convert the phonemes (OR 'phones??') when borrowing may not be so strong
>> any more.

> Nevertheless, Spanish phonemic theta is *always* rendered in Basque as
> the laminal sibilant <z>, and never as phonetic theta.

[Ed]

This brings us back to the old discussion about the origins of the two
sibilants s/theta in Castilian (the often heard idea is that it comes from an
affricated s) and its possible relationship to the two (apical/laminal)
sibilants written as s/z in Basque. After all, Castilian originated in the
fringe of the Basque speaking area. Remember also my remark about the Castilian
adjective Madrileño, with an l like in Basque 'Madril'.

>> What do the French Basques say, who don't speak Spanish? THAT will be
>> interesting!

> I have no data, I'm afraid.  Hualde didn't look at this, and I can't
> recall hearing a French Basque pronounce a suitable recent borrowing
> from French.  Anyway, there really are no ordinary lexical items
> ending in /d/ in the kind of southern French spoken in and near the
> French Basque Country.  A word that has final /d/ in standard Parisian
> French always has a following schwa in this southern French, and this
> schwa is always taken into French Basque as /a/.  For example, French
> <parade> comes into French Basque as <parada>.  I guess we really need
> a suitable French acronym, but I can't think of one.

[Ed]

That (ancronym) is what I meant.