LL-L "Phonology" 2007.06.11 (04) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

L O W L A N D S - L  -  11 June 2007 - Volume 04

=========================================================================

From: Diederik Masure <didimasure at hotmail.com>
Subject: Phonology

Hoi, I was wondering if any of you is known with the following phenomenon:
aspiration of final p, t, k.

Generally the Germanic languages have only aspirated ptk at the beginning of
words, and not in the clusters s+ptk. Medial/final ptk are always
unaspirated. This is as far as I know the case in German, the Scandinavian
languages and English.
(Standard) Dutch doesn't have any aspiration at all.

As with standard Dutch, we (in Antwerp? In whole Brabant? that's what I'm
trying to find out) seem to have aspirated ptk, but only word-finally. As
bdg is devoiced word-finally they also get aspiration.
Toe (closed) thence is pronounced "toe", but boot (boat) "booth" - with
aspirated t, not English th. Kar is pronounced "kar", but boek sounds as
"boekh".

None of the books on dialect I read ever mentions this, but noone seems
aware of it either, here. But when I was in Norway, people tended to hear
"Diederik" as "Diederich" (with [x]). Recently someone in amsterdam also
commented on my weird pronunciation of final -k.
And today my sister told that at diction classes, she learnt that people
from here should take care not to pronounce paard (horse) as paarth because
that makes unclear buzzing when speaking into microphones.
So I think it's clear to assume there is something, although it never seems
to be investigated properly.

So my original question was, anyone else (mainly asking our other Flemish
members, but also the others) knows this feature from his own dialect or is
it regionally very limited?

Greets,
Diederich

PS because the Norwegians interpret it as "ch", I am not totally sure
whether it is aspirated kh or an affricat, kch, tþ, pf with a weak
'whispered' ch/th/f in the end.

----------

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

Hoi, Diederik (or Dietrich or Derek)!

You wrote above:

> Generally the Germanic languages have only aspirated ptk at the beginning
of words, and not in the clusters s+ptk. Medial/final ptk are always
unaspirated. This is as far as I know the case in German, the Scandinavian
languages and English.

This needs to be tweaked.

In many German and Southern England English dialects, at the very least,
plosives (p, t, k) are always aspirated before a vowel, not only
word-initially; e.g.

G. Peter ["p_he:t_h@`]
E. Peter ["p_hi:t_h@`]

G. Tüte ["t_hy:t_h@] (paperbag)

E. potato [p_heU"t_hEIt_heU]

In some dialects of England, strong aspiration has led to the development of
/t/ to [ts]; thus ["p_hi:ts@`] and [p_heU"tsEItsheU].  (This rule applies in
some Danish dialects, but only in syllables with main stress; e.g. ti [tsi']
'ten'.)

In other aspirating varieties, though, it does tend to be restricted to the
syllable with main stress, such as in Germany's Low Saxon and in English
varieties of North America, Australia and New Zealand.  This enabled the
development of the "America flap" from intervocalic /t/ in varieties of
American English and Low Saxon of German.

"Typical" English of South Africa tends to lack aspiration, probably due to
Afrikaans influences.

I used to think that no variety has word-final aspiration.  So I'm surprised
and very interested about your report.

I'm not doubting what you say, bu could it be that your Norwegian friends
are influenced by the German name (Theodoric >) Dietrich ["ditrIC]?

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lowlands-l/attachments/20070611/02b9a459/attachment.htm>