> In Vytautas Ambrazas' Lithuanian Grammar it says "[U]nstressed
>[long] vowels in Standard Lithuanian show a tendency to be shortened
>and turn into half-long (sometimes even relatively short) tense
>vowels. These changes do not harm the phonological system: the
>contrast is not lost, but only modified.
This is of course correct but in everyday "city" language the
contrast is actually lost: v ýr ų and v ýru are exact
homophones. Mr
Ambrazas and other Lithuanian philologists articulate very clearly
and urge everyone to do this, however, the real life corrects
phonetics in its own way. Yet if the loss of contrast leads to any
kind of dangerous ambiguity, both syllables are stressed in
v ýr ų, thus making it possible to pronounce the last vowel as
a long
one.
>How close to standard Lithuanian [ æË'°] would you say that this
vowel
>is (as regards the quality of the syllabic nucleus)? And in what way
>(s) does it differ?
From the practical point of view, the long "e" in "Petras" is quite
different from " Ñ'¯" in пÑ'¯Ñ'¢Ñ'¬ because a kind of "j" sound
(the "y" in "yacht") can be barely heard in the beginning of the
" Ñ'¯".
This may be hardly spottable in Russian itself but when a Russian
says "Petras" he instinctively substitutes " Ñ'¯" for "e" and
"Pyatras" comes out (analogously, a Lithuanian instinctively
pronounces пÑ'¯Ñ'¢Ñ'¬ as [pe:t']).
Juozas Rimas