On Fri, 03 Dec 2004 15:08:44 -0800, Patrick Chew <patchew@...> wrote:

>
> щ /ʃʧ/ [ʃʧ]~[ʃʲʧʲ]

From what I have heard, this is not accurate, or at least not in all
cases; I've heard щ described as being always "soft", and the
pronunciation I've heard doesn't have two separate segments (fricative
and affricate) but only one, fricative, one.

> Russian can overtly encode palatalization of a
> consonant/consonant-string by use of the "soft sign" <ь> or overtly
> block palatalization (triggered by vowels that automatically palatalize
> preceding consonants) by the "hard sign" <ъ>

But AFAIK there are also letters which are always palatalised. ISTR
that either ц or ч also fell into this group.

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>