Re[8]: ka and k^a [was: [tied] *kW- "?"]

At 8:08:25 PM on Friday, September 23, 2005, Patrick Ryan
wrote:

> From: "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...>

>> At 5:24:18 PM on Friday, September 23, 2005, Patrick Ryan
>> wrote:

>>> From: "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...>

>>>> Some readily available examples referring to the
>>>> realization of /t/ as [?]:
>>>> <http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~port/teach/541/allophones.html>:

>>>> /t/ (and sometimes /p,k/) -> [?] /__ [+] or /__ N
>>>> (where [+] is syllable boundary)

>>> The key to understanding what significance this rule has
>>> is contained in the first paragraph:

>>> "Of course, not every American speaker may use them all."

>> So? I haven't seen anyone claiming that they are universal
>> in U.S. speech.

> The implication of what you wrote was that this is quite
> common. Based on what?

(1) My own observation. (2) The reported observations of
others, some of them specialists in the field.

Bluntly, if you haven't noticed the phenomenon, then either
you lead a charmed life, you haven't paid attention, or
you're incapable of recognizing it when you hear it. If you
haven't encountered it in your reading, then you can't have
read much about the pronunciation of English in the 20th
century and later. (I limit it so because to the best of my
knowledge the tendency towards glottalization of
syllable-final and pre-nasal voiceless stops is modern.)

>>> Until these details are furnished for verification, I
>>> would question whether this is a rule for American English
>>> or a mere aberration.

>> It is neither. Use of [t], [?t], and [?] in these contexts
>> varies considerably, not just by speaker, but also by
>> register. There are probably other axes as well, including
>> sheer chance.

> More bland generalizations because you have nothing
> specific to add.

No, it is not a bland generalization: it is a specific
rebuttal of your false dichotomy. Glottalization, either to
[?t] or all the way to [?], is (utterly unsurprisingly) more
common in informal contexts. In sufficiently informal
contexts it very nearly is a rule for some speakers; I'm one
of them. For other speakers it's a more sporadic
phenomenon. I've heard a few speakers who rarely glottalize
in any context. Thus, it is not a rule for American English
in general; it is a rule that is employed to different
extents, ranging from near 0% to near 100%, by different
speakers. My own observation would suffice to show me that
it's far too common to be classed as an aberration, even
without reference to expert opinion.

> "varies considerably"? Does that mean 1 in 10,000,000 GA
> speakers uses it?

I strongly suspect that the majority of native speakers of
U.S. varieties of English realize syllable-final and
pre-nasal /t/ as [?t] at least some of the time. I'm quite
confident that very few realize such /t/ as [?] all of the
time.

>>>> <http://odin.prohosting.com/hkkim/cgi-bin/kaeps/eng_phon.htm>:

>>>> Quoting from Ladefoged's _Course in Phonetics_: This does
>>>> not apply to /t/ before syllabic [n] as in 'mutton'
>>>> ['m&?n] because the /t/ there has become a glottal stop.

>>>> (The [n] in the transcription of 'mutton' is marked as
>>>> syllabic in the original.) This is in a discussion of
>>>> American pronunciation.

>>> In this reference, the author (evidently, a Korean) does
>>> not assert Ladefoged's rule but merely cites it to
>>> register a contrary opinion constituting an exception to
>>> his rule on 'flapping'.

>> No, the auther is not registering a contrary opinion, but
>> rather simply noting the existence of a more
>> refined/detailed version of his general statement. But this
>> is irrelevant, since the point of the citations was
>> Ladefoged's statement, and I didn't have the book handy at
>> the time. Now I do, and can cite p.86 of the 2nd ed'n.

> Nonsense. Where does the author cite Ladefoged's rule? I
> must have missed it.

You did. Look again at the section 'Tapping' and the
reference to Ladefoged (1993:65).

> Anything you cite from Ladefoged is worthless unless it
> includes specifics that can be verified.

Worthless to you, you mean. The book in question is an
elementary textbook; no reasonable person would expect the
kind of detailed evidence that would go into a research
paper. I'm perfectly willing to accept Ladefoged's summary
of the situation, pending genuine counterevidence: he's a
well-regarded expert, and besides, what he reports agrees
with my experience and with the reports of others. Your
opinion carries little if any weight.

>>>> <http://www.indiana.edu/~hlw/PhonProcess/accents.html>:

>>>> The glottal stop is a possible allophone of /t/ in GA, but
>>>> only in the context where it follows a vowel and precedes
>>>> a consonant, for example, in _outright chaos_ and _let me
>>>> go_.

>>> Notice that this reference notices only [?] as a
>>> _possible_ allophone of [t].

>> Meaning that it is one of the realizations that occur in the
>> stated context. If you're interpreting 'possible' here as
>> 'we're not sure, but maybe it happens', you're choosing an
>> unnatural reading in order to try to salvage an untenable
>> thesis.

> Good straw man.

Had I assumed (or feigned to assume) that you were in fact
interpreting 'possible' in that way, it would have been a
straw man, but I did not, and it is not. I simply answered
in advance an argument that I could easily imagine you
making.

> Of course, I understand "possible" to mean that there are
> recorded instances of this phenomenon.

Most excellent.

> Your position is not tenable because you have no evidence
> to back it up. I have asked for some repeatedly and I
> believe if you had some, I would have read it by now.

On the contrary, you've been given evidence by both me and
Miguel. Both of us have also explained why the highly
detailed kind of evidence that you want is in short supply,
and you've managed to justify to yourself dismissing
everything that's been offered. Since I have little doubt
that you will continue to do so, I shan't trouble myself to
hunt further.

>>>> The realization of /t/ as [?t] (and sometimes of /k/ and /p/
>>>> as [?k] and [?p] resp.) before a syllable boundary or nasal
>>>> is commonplace and should need no [reference].

>>> If it is so commonplace, surely someone besides you has
>>> noticed it, like maybe even Ladefoged. Why no reference
>>> for it then.

>> For the reason that I gave: it's a basic datum that I expect
>> you either to know or at least to be able to verify from
>> readily available sources. Moreover, it's hardly surprising
>> once one knows that /t/ can surface as [?] in some contexts.

> It is totally outrageous for you to assert that anyone
> should know what _you_ consider to be a "basic datum".

Of course I did no such thing. If memory serves, everyone
else involved in this discussion seems to have been aware of
it, and Miguel at least indicated that he considered it
common knowledge ('The preglottalization in English (AE and
RP) is obvious to anybody without a tin ear and with a
little training in phonetics').

This has now been off-topic for quite a while. If you have
anything to the point to add, phoNet is probably the right
place.

Brian