Re: [tied] The disappearance of *-s -- The saga continues

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, enlil@... wrote:

> Miguel:
> > This is of course completely backwards. It's alveolar /r/
> > which causes /s/ to become /S/. I'm not aware of this
> > occurring in Icelandic, but it's certainly what happens in
> > Swedish.
>
> Probably. If I remember gramma speaking Swedish, she did
> too but she was fully bilingual so she pronounced English
> without the Bjork effect. I'm sure, having heard Icelandic
> people talk English, not just Bjork, several times that they
> must do this too because I can hear it distinctly.
>
> At any rate, assimilation processes can work in either
> direction. So while we might find /r/ alveolarizing
> following /s/, there's nothing to say that we can't
> conversely see /s/ alveolarizing preceding /r/.
>

Textbooks say Swedish /d/, /l/, /n/ and /s/ become /d./, /l./, /n./
and /s./, thus retroflex, after /r/. So supposedly, it's /s./,
not /S/. This pronunciation is considered "better" and is spreading
south into Scania, replacing /s/ in these positions.

Icelandic <s> tends towards /S/, indendent of position.


Torsten