> ... but I don't know whether Mandarin
> speakers actually use alveolar "s"'s, I never looked it up
I looked it up. I was wrong. It's a dental sibilant but
then I realized that when I say /si4/ "four", I do use
a dental. It would be harder with an alveolar here anyways.
http://www.zein.se/patrick/chinen8p.html
Although. When I say "su" again in Mandarin, I find it
sounds weird here with a dental and more natural with
an alveolar. Maybe it has something to do with the effect
of the unusual high central vowel in /si4/.
Whatever. Mandarin has nothing to do with this. It was
the existence/absence of French "alveolars" we were talking
about.
= gLeN