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

----- Original Message -----
From: "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 13, 2004 12:28 PM
Subject: 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.

I started as retroflex /s./ but now I would say it is generally /S/, at
least in Central Sweden. And this /S/ doesn't sound retroflex to me
(anymore) which is probably understandable because it would then be closer
to back /x/ which is pronounced as something between [x] and back [S]. The
/r/ is dropped before the retroflexed segments.

Mate