----- Original Message -----
From: "Miguel Carrasquer" <mcv@...>
To: <phoNet@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 1:47 PM
Subject: Re: [phoNet] Re: schwa in Czech


>> Besides, schwa also occurs in other consonantic clusters: e.g. <kdy>
[g&'di] "when" CV-'CV.

> That violates Czech accentuation rules: the stress must fall on the first
vowel.

There's no vowel in Polish <gdy> 'when' or <kto> 'who', though foreign
listeners might "hear" one. The (separate) realease of the first consonant
may be mistaken for a schwa (not by a native speaker, though), but there are
no reduced vowels in Polish phonology. The phonotactics of our first
language may make us hear "things that are not". <spot> may sound
trisyllabic ("/supotsu/") to a Japanese ear, but that tells us more aboutr
Japanese than about English. To my ear, Czech syllabic liquids are real
enough, even if they involve a brief vowel-like transition sound. When
prolonged, /krk/ definitely becomes [krrrrrk], not [kr&&&&k], and not even
[krrrr&k]. After all, can one imagine that generations of _Czech_
phoneticians have been mislead by the spelling?

Piotr