LL-L: "Phonology" [E] LOWLANDS-L, 23.JUN.1999 (05)

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From: Ethan Barrett <barrett at uos.net>
Subject: Phonology

Lowlands-L Administrator wrote:

> The observation is that "I have to"
> is commonly pronounced "I haff to", thus with unvoicing of the [v].

I have noticed that many people, including myself, devoice the 'v' sound only
when stressing the word 'have'.  So it would be:

"I HAFF to do something"

but

"I have to do something"

A German friend of mine noted that, in Germany, there is a phenomenon that is
fairly common in the corruption of German words; many languages tend to corrupt
words
by softening a consenant, example:

"I wanna"  for "I want to"

or the ancient corruption of "Norseman" to "Norman".

But in Germany it is apparently very common to do the opposite and 'harshen'
(I don't know if there is a technical term for this) a word, i.e., to replace
weak consonants with stronger ones while speaking.  I am beginning to notice
that
we do this in English a bit as well.

Just an observation,
Ethan Barrett

----------

From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at geocities.com>
Subject: Phonology

Ethan wrote (and mistakenly mentioned yours truly as the originator):

> A German friend of mine noted that, in Germany, there is a phenomenon that is
> fairly common in the corruption of German words; many languages tend to
corrupt words
> by softening a consenant, example:
>
> "I wanna"  for "I want to"
>
> or the ancient corruption of "Norseman" to "Norman".
>
> But in Germany it is apparently very common to do the opposite and 'harshen'
> (I don't know if there is a technical term for this) a word, i.e., to replace
> weak consonants with stronger ones while speaking.  I am beginning to notice
that
> we do this in English a bit as well.

Ethan, unless I'm mistaken, you are referring to "assimilation."  This is a
broad category of phonological rules where one segment assimilates (partly or
fully) to an adjacent element, in this case "regressively."  It has nothing to
do with "softening" or "hardening," but it is a type of process of "melding"
adjacent segments to make them easier to pronounce. This can be done
progressively (where you anticipate the pronounciation of the next segment) or
regressively (where the previous segment influences the next).   The more
features the two segments share, and the more important the shared features are,
the more easily and likely it is for one of them to assimilate to the other.

For instance, /n/ is dental (or dentoalveolar) and voiced, and /d/ has the same
features, though it is not nasal like /n/.  Thus /d/ is very likely -- in
"sloppy" speech -- to change into an [n] if it directly follows an /n/.  This is
a general rule in Low Saxon (Low German), especially if the two segments belong
to different syllables; e.g., _Kind_ 'child' -> _Kinner_ ''children'.  It also
applies in Missingsch (North German dialects with Low Saxon substrata); e.g.,
_Sie wennet sich annie Kinna(s)_ or _Sie wennesich annie Kinna(s)_  (cf.
Standard German _Sie wendet sich an die Kinder_) 'She turns to(ward) the
children', 'She addresses the children'.  (I also happen to know that this
occurs in many ordinary speech modes of Afrikaans; e.g., _in die_ -> _innie_
'in(to) the', _kinders_ -> _kinners_ 'children'.)

Sometimes assimilation applies even when there are fewer shared features between
the segments.  Thus, as you noted, in some English dialects /t/ will assimilate
to /n/ even though it is not voiced and even though there is a word boundary
between them, as in _want to_ -> _wanna_.  Assimilation is far less likely to
take place if the segments are very much dissimilar, i.e., do not share main
features (like [+dental] above).  Thus, for example, you would probably not
assimilate /k/ (a velar stop [back of the mouth]) to /p/ (a labial stop [lips
and teeth]), as in _napkin_ -> *_nappin_ or *_nackin_.

A segment can also partially assimilate.  For example, /t/ can assimilate to
preceding /n/ only in terms of voicing, and you would get something like
_winter_ -> _winder_ (but not *_winner_).

I assume it is this type of thing to which your German friend referred.  Because
it is not "standard" and not as it is written, we, having turned biased due to
cultural conditioning or indoctrination, perceive it as "wrong," "bad,"
"corrupt," "low-class," "unbecoming," etc., but all it is is the application of
a certain phonological rule that knows neither "good" nor "bad."

This becomes interesting when such  rules that are undesirable in one's own
language are found applying consistently, thus are desirable, in another
language.  It is then very easy for our social prejudices to be transferred from
our own language (where the rule is "icky poo") to the other language (were the
rule applies as universally or in the standard, "good" dialect).  For example, a
speaker of German hears Low Saxon (Low German) _Kinner_ (instead of _Kinder_) as
"substandard" because it is "substandard" in German dialects, and thus he or she
comes to perceive Low Saxon as "substandard," "low-class," "ig-nurnd," and
whatever else.  Once a German asked me how to pronounce something in a certain
non-Indo-European language.  This happened to involve medial vowels and lack of
aspiration (both unknown in Standard German).  Her reaction to my demonstration:
_Igitt! Das hört sich ja fast sächsisch an!_ ('Yuck! That sounds almost
Saxon!').  Apparently, quite a few people are prejudiced against the German
dialects of Saxony.  So to her this "weird" language was _richtig häßlich_
('really ugly'), and she wanted to know no more about it.  Why?  In her mind it
had associations with something that is undesirable in her own little universe.

Best regards,

Reinhard/Ron

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