From: Patrick C. Ryan
Message: 19229
Date: 2003-02-25
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...>
To: "Patrick C. Ryan" <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2003 11:54 AM
Subject: Re[2]: [tied] English "voiced" stops
> At 12:17:54 AM on Tuesday, February 25, 2003, Patrick C.
> Ryan wrote:
>
> >> Ladefoged, A Course in Phonetics, p. 50:
>
> >> Most people have very little voicing going on while the
> >> lips are closed during either "pie" or "buy."
>
> > If this is a sample of Ladefoged, I suggest respectfully
> > that other sources might profitably be consulted.
>
> > No one that I know of has ever suggested that there is
> > "little voicing" or any voicing during the closure of
> > English initial /p/. This is either inaccurate or purely
> > poor exposition.
>
> Presumably Ladefoged expects the reader to understand that
> it's a statement about what the pronunciation of 'pie' and
> 'buy' have in common, namely, very little voicing while the
> lips are closed. 'Very little' includes 'none' as a special
> case.
[PCR]
Not in my dialect or logic. "very little" means that there is "some".
> >> Most speakers of American English have no voicing during
> >> the closure of so-called voiced stops in sentence initial
> >> position.
>
> > Again, "most" needs quantification.
>
> At the very least it means 'more than half'. Further
> quantification would be nice but is hardly necessary to make
> the point.
[PCR]
I am questioning whether it is a valid point at all. Are you prepared to assure me that "most" here means 50+%?
I absolutely assert, through my own experience, that "most" people do not lack voicing during the closure period of initial "voiced" stops.
> > Ladefoged is simply wrong on "most" though, I admit, it
> > obviously happens in ethnic enclaves.
>
> Of what kind(s)? And why is your view to be preferred to
> that of a specialist with decades of experience?
[PCR]
Experts assured us the world was flat some years ago. From what I have seen of this specialist, he is unconscionably imprecise.
Pat
PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE@... (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE: http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec at ec hecc, vindgá meiði a netr allar nío, geiri vndaþr . . . a þeim meiþi, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rótom renn." (Hávamál 138)