hard sounds

[erich steffen]

thanx alot to everybody for the good inputs. i ll try to figure out a
consens and look foreward to understand the arguments of the different parties.

greetings

erich steffen>


I wonder if Mr. Steffen was not, perhaps, referring to the ways in which
> many consonants are articulated in Russian, rather than to the linguistic
> category of hard and soft. What I mean (and what I think Mr. Steffen
meant)
> is that consonants -- especially the dentals and some of the labials (not
P,
> of course) -- are pronounced with a lot more "plosion" in Russian than
> they are in English, German and French. (My linguistic training is,
> admittedly, "§é§Ö§Þ§å-§ß§Ú§Ò§å§Õ§î §Ú §Ü§Ñ§Ü-§ß§Ú§Ò§å§Õ§î," and I
anticipate a firm
> correction from the real linguists out there. But here goes.) The hard
> (linguistically) dentals in Russian SOUND hard (now I'm using the word
> non-linguistically), and therefore subjectively maybe aggressive, because
they're
> articulated much farther back in the mouth (closer to the O position than
the
> I position), and the lower jaw is dropped much lower.
>
> The result is a very different, more "aggressive" sound, at least to my
> ear. One of the "tells" of an Anglophone accent in Russian is the delicate
> way we pronounce our d's, t's, and v's, especially the American tendency
to
> "tongue flap" consonants (when we say butter, for instance). The same
holds
> true for French, I think -- perhaps even more so than English, French is a
> language that dawdles on its vowels and swallows its consonants. Russian
> does just the opposite. The net effect (and this is subjective) is that
> Russian sounds HARD and, therefore, aggressive.
>
> As proof for all this subjectiveness: When I've talked to non-Russian
> speakers, they always say that Russians (especially males) sound "angry"
when
> they speak. Part of that is the intonational pattern, but part of it is
the
> way Russians articulate their consonants.  (Anecdotally, my cat goes crazy
> when I speak Russian around the house -- she actually bats at my mouth and
> I end up locking her in a closet until my guests leave. Clearly,
Anglophone
> felines also perceive Russian's strangeness.)
>
>
> mad
> ()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()
> Dr. Michael A. Denner
> Russian Studies Program
> Stetson University
> Campus Box 8361
> DeLand, FL 32724
> 386.822.7381 (department)
> 386.822.7265 (direct line)
> 386.822.7380 (fax)
> http://www.stetson.edu/~mdenner
> http://russianpoetry.net
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Miriam Margala [mailto:miriam at LING.ROCHESTER.EDU]
> Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2004 1:11 PM
> To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
> Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] hard sounds
>
>  I think Benjamin Rifkin gave a good response. It's tricky to associate
> purely linguistic terms with any other phenomena though I think I sort
> of know what you're trying to express,
>
> best
>
> Miriam Margala
> Dept. of English, Dept. of Linguistics
> University of Rochester
> Rochester
> New York 14627
> USA
>
> Edil Legno wrote:
>
> >I think I didn't express very well my ideas. One thing is the harder mode
> of pronunciation and another the sign of lacking in education. Tbe
> geographical part which is very close to Bratislava is called Zahorie.From
here
> and from Trnava are usually the people which pronounce  all sounds
> di-ti-ni-li and  de-te-ne-le only in hard mode.As those people (in the
past)were
> >usually peasants and very simple persons ,with no education,
> >the way how they pronounce these sounds - made a bigger  mark on  the
> difference between the  so-called people with education and non. They were
a
> lot of jokes on the past communist governers because of their  hard mode
of
> pronunciation. Someone of those past com.politics had a very low level of
> education  (only evening schools)  .The correct pronunciation of some
> words:peasant is sedliak,they pronounce it like "sedlak". the word "kde"
with
> soft-de- they pronounce it only with hard - de-. Word Bratislava - hard
-ti-is
> pronounced only by foreigners and "zahoraci".Educated Slovak NEVER will
> >pronounce it that way.That's why it's considered just a lacking in
> education.
> >
> >Best wishes
> >Katar¨¬na Peitlov¨¤,Ph.Dr.
> >
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