----- Original Message -----From: Piotr GasiorowskiSent: Tuesday, October 03, 2006 1:10 AMSubject: Re: [tied] Vowel Lengthening from V + Voiced Stop (was Vowel Lengthening from V + Voiced Consonant)On 2006-10-03 05:44, Patrick Ryan wrote:
>> But if you are referring to the affect of the following
>> voiced/unvoiced consonant, my proposed solution would be to average
>> the durations of the two extremes.
>
> Which is what I proposed in my reply to Petr, didn't I?
> Sorry, I see no mention of it in that message.
I meant the following passage, suggesting that the pre-sonorant quantity
was average and therefore "normal".
>>> Note that vowel length before sonorant consonants (liquids and
>>> nasals) is almost precisely intermediate between the durations
>>> found in pre-lenis and pre-fortis contexts. Sonorants are
>>> phonetically voiced, but their voicing is phonologically
>>> non-distinctive. RELATIVE to the pre-sonorant position,
>>> distinctively voiced consonants lengthen vowels, whereas
>>> distinctively voiceless ones shorten them.***
If you wish to define "normal" vowel length as the length of a vowel before a sonorant whether closing the syllable or beginning a subsequent syllable in a word, be my guest. It is completely arbitrary. It has no justification other than the utility of agreeing on _some_ vowel length as "normal". Normality of length does not seem to be an inherent trait of vowels since no vowel seems to be capable of production without an influence of some sort.
***
> I am not talking about averaging the [I]'s of <bid> and <bit> but
> rather the [I]'s of <bidet> and <bitumen>.
But this is hardly a useful standard measure, given the fact that such a
metrically weak /I/ is often instable, and many speakers pronounce it as
a schwa (as in <bitumen>) or, conversely, use /i:/ instead (thus often
in <bidet>).***
I think it is as useful as any other, bearing in mind the arbitrariness of the choice. Obviously, the duration of the vowel would have to be measured from the speech of those who do use [I] in these words.
Patrick
***