Re: [tied] Re: /s/ to /x/ sound change

From: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
Message: 4865
Date: 2000-11-26

On Sun, 26 Nov 2000 14:39:54 -0000, "J. Klek" <jekl@...> wrote:

>Being quite often in Sweden, I can hear myself a sound shift of [s.]
>towards [x] like in "sju" or "sjö" words (mentioned by Miguel).
>First time I could only hear /x/, nothing else... but it looks like
>to me it is articulated quite differently by various people.

I was simplifying in the Swedish case. A good discussion of the
Swedish <sj> sound can be found in Ladefoged and Maddieson, "The
Sounds of the World's Languages", pp. 171-172. Basically, there are
two variants, but various intermediate forms also occur. The first is
described by Lindblad ("Svenskans sje- och tje-ljud i ett
Allmänfonetisk Perspektiv", Trav. de l'Inst. de Ling. de Lund 16,
1980) as a "highly rounded labiodental velar(ized) fricative", i.e.
the lips are rounded, friction is produced by a constriction between
lower lip and upper teeth [as in [f]], and additionally the back of
the tongue is raised. The second variant is described by Lindgren as
a "dorsovelar voiceless fricative". It is similar to [x], but
slightly more forward and produced with less friction. If I may add
some historical speculations of my own, I would say that <sj> was
originally plain (labialized) [S(w)], but that the simultaneous
"attack" by <kj>/<tj> becoming something like Polish <s'> and <rs>
becoming something like Polish <sz>, caused <sj> to assume the current
range of pronunciations (forward flight to [fw~] or backward flight to
[x+]).


=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...