[Lexicog] new nosey word

[Kenneth C. Hill]

I am not a Slavicist but rather a student primarily of Uto-Aztecan (US &
Mexico) languages, but also of phonetics, so I suggest that my perception
might be taken as unbiased: I hear Slavic words with liquids as syllabic
centers, such as vlk, srpski, hrvatski, to be unconfusingly just that. In
the case of vlk, the v seems to be released directly into a lateral
articulation. If there is a shwa-like sound in the transition of the s or
h (phonetic [x]) of srpski or hrvatski, it is so brief as to defy
definition as a vowel; certainly it's not a nuclear vowel. It must also be
noted that Srpski & Hrvatski (Serbo-Croatian) have a length contrast in
syllable nuclei in r (I don't know about l), and the long vs. short
difference does not reside in the putative vanishingly brief shwa
transition.

--Ken

--- Preslav Ivanov Nakov <nakov at eecs.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Koontz John E [mailto:john.koontz at colorado.edu]
>
> I don't know enough about Czech or Serbian to elucidate the detailed
> phonetics of either, but this is an old argument in linguistics.  I
> believe
> I can manage vlk, v<schwa>lk, and vl<schwa>k distinctively, without
> knowing
> if I approximate Czech in any case.  There are basicly two levels at
> which
> this argument can be fought - the phonetic and the phonological.  At the
> phonetic level it appears that any sound that is extendible can be the
> peak
> of sonority of a syllable, e.g., the range of r and l sounds, nasal
> "stops",
> fricatives, and stop releases.
>
> At the phonetic level it appears that any sound that is
> extendible can be the peak of sonority of a syllable, e.g., the range of
> r
> and l sounds, nasal "stops", fricatives, and stop releases.
>
> At the phonological level much depends on the internal logic of the
> system
> and whether, for example, there are reduced vowels that pattern with
> potential instances of non-vocalic syllable peaks.  At this level I can
> well imagine that things might work differently in different branches of
> Slavic.
> <<< Serbian in geographically next to Bulgarian. They are both South
> Slavonic languages. Macedonian is very very close to Bulgarian
> (considered
> as a dialect of it, but I do not want to engage in political discussions
> here). E.g. when a Bulgarian president/politician meets a Macedonian
> colleague he never uses translation - there is no need. Still, in
> Macedonian
> they have no vowel for the sound used in the English "cut". But it is
> still
> there in the language. And they do use apostrophe to indicate that in
> some
> particular word the vowel should be put not where it is normally. E.g.
> v'rv
> vs. vr'v. They assume one of these forms as the norm, and use an
> explicit
> apostrophe for the other form. They do not really try to pronounce it in
> a
> third way with no vowel at all.
>
> In connection with reading this some years ago in a class conducted by
> Alan Bell, he played a tape (by Aert Kuipers and various speakers of NW
> languages, I think) which was fairly astounding to listen to.  On the
> other hand, I think Alan said at the time that [Ilse Lehiste?]'s
> reaction
> to the tape had been "Short voiceless vowels."
>
> <<< Listening to records is always fun. And I appreciate how hard it can
> be
> to believe for someone that there is a vowel on either side of "r" or
> "l"
> when his grammar says there isn't. I remember a demo by Prof. Barry when
> there was an analysis of the pronunciation of a particular word "kato"
> in
> running speech. In the Eastern dialects of Bulgarian it can be
> pronounced as
> "k'to" (where the apostrophe means or vowel in question), and even more
> likely as "k'tu". But in fact it sounded as "k't'". And nobody believed,
> anybody believed to here "k'tu". When the two vowels of that word have
> been
> cut and played in isolation, they sounded both as a clear '.
>
>
> Finally, I admit that the phonetic system of the different Slavonic
> languages could have developed in different ways in the different
> languages.
> The Old Bulgarian language (which is the first written form of the
> common
> Slavonic language of the IXth century) had this particular vowel. So it
> is
> natural to expect it. I guess it should be in decline in most Slavonic
> languages, as it appears only next to "r" and "l" in Czech and only as
> followed by "y" (read as a consonant, e.g. in Yankee) in Russian. But it
> is
> fully functional in Bulgarian and is free to appear everywhere as any
> other
> vowel. BTW the Old Slavonic/Bulgarian had some additional vowels, e.g.
> nasal
> ones that one finds in today's French, that are lost today.
>
>
> Preslav
>
>
>


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