The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

[anteallach]

But why are you sceptical about their existence? Not every English speaker uses a bunched r.

For my part, I don't know enough to justify scepticism, but recently I've come across a bunch of cases where something that's described as an apical coronal approximant ends up having other stuff going on as well---retroflexion, of course, but there's also labialisation, tongue-backing, pharyngealisation; I think it tends to be something that results in accoustic "flatness." And I've been wondering whether the pattern is general. Not that I've done a lot of checking---I certainly haven't gone hunting for articulatory details on a lot of languages that are reported as having /ɹ/.

Do you have any good examples?

It's true that the British English /r/ tends to have some co-articulation; certainly mine does (and for me the postalveolar constriction is usually laminal rather than apical, at least in initial position). But I think that in some, perhaps relatively old-fashioned accents, the co-articulations are relatively unimportant and may be absent. I don't think traditional RP /r/ is usually described as pharyngealised, and I think the labialisation -- or labiodentalisation -- is generally described as variable.

As for other languages, Ladefoged and Maddieson's section 7.4 on "fricative and approximant /r/'s" mostly talks about English, and the non-English examples are fricatives, so doesn't help you much, but there's a later section 7.6 on contrasts between rhotics which does give some approximant examples:
- Hausa has a trill which contrasts with a post-alveolar segment which is either a flap or an approximant; the wording suggests the variation is between speakers. The symbol [ɻ] is used.
- Many Australian languages have contrasting rhotics. Typically there's an postalveolar approximant, but they mention Murinhpatha as also having an alveolar approximant.
- Edo has three contrasting rhotics. All have been described as alveolar, and at least one is clearly an approximant; the other two are a voiced/voiceless pair, and the voiced one appears to be either a weak fricative or a close approximant. So there may actually be two contrasting approximants, one closer than the other. They do suggest that there's some sort of place distinction, but don't say what it is; perhaps it's apical vs. laminal?

Edit: I guess you've looked through the examples on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveolar_ ... proximants ? Many of them appear to be allophonic variants of other rhotics, but not all.

[akam chinjir]

Thanks for those! Yeah, I did end up concluding that some of the best examples had [ɹ] as an allophone of /ɾ/ or /r/. I got a bit frustrated trying to follow up on the Ladefoged and Maddieson examples, though maybe those are good too.

(Latest frustration: they say Murinhpatha has three rhotics, one of them an alveolar approximant; but the chapter on segmental phonology in Murinhpatha Morphology and Phonology has only two, and it describes the approximant as retroflex and says it alternates with ʈ (as opposed to t), but then puts it in the alveolar column of the consonants table. I'm not sure what an amateur like me is supposed to make of this.)

for me the postalveolar constriction is usually laminal rather than apical, at least in initial position

That makes it sound awfully close to [j].

[quinterbeck]

for me the postalveolar constriction is usually laminal rather than apical, at least in initial position

That makes it sound awfully close to [j].

Taking this as a reference, [j] is produced by constriction between the forward part of the tongue body and the hard palate, while laminal [ɹ] is produced by constriction between the tongue blade and the alveolar ridge. They sound pretty distinct to me

[akam chinjir]

for me the postalveolar constriction is usually laminal rather than apical, at least in initial position

That makes it sound awfully close to [j].

Taking this as a reference, [j] is produced by constriction between the forward part of the tongue body and the hard palate, while laminal [ɹ] is produced by constriction between the tongue blade and the alveolar ridge. They sound pretty distinct to me

That [ɹ] isn't postalveolar, though.

Also, I'm a bit too under sway of the idea that palatals are coronals, maybe a bit too under the sway. Though for me at least [ʃ] and [j] seem to be in about the same place (with the tongue body maybe a bit further forward for [ʃ]?).

[quinterbeck]

That [ɹ] isn't postalveolar, though.

Also, I'm a bit too under sway of the idea that palatals are coronals, maybe a bit too under the sway. Though for me at least [ʃ] and [j] seem to be in about the same place (with the tongue body maybe a bit further forward for [ʃ]?).

Heh, I missed that detail. For me the differences between postalveolar and palatal are as much in the tongue shape as the point of most constriction. In my own postalveolar, the sides of the tongue are raised into a u-shape, while the centre of the tongue is higher in a palatal (more like an n-shape), and the postalveolar has a larger cavity below the tongue.

My [ɹ] also has a sublingual cavity and is rounded (BrE)... not too far off my [ʃ]

I just realised that could be why English has the /ʃɹ/ onset and not /sɹ/ (the opposite of the other sC onsets) - because of the similarity in their articulation!! Sublingual cavity + rounding!

[Salmoneus]

Though for me at least [ʃ] and [j] seem to be in about the same place (with the tongue body maybe a bit further forward for [ʃ]?).

For me, /S/ is actually further back than /j/. However, I can if I want produce /S/ where I produce /j/, and /j/ where I produce /S/, without any change that comes close to phonemic, or even weird (whereas if I push /S/ even further, to be genuinely laminal-postalveolar, it sounds very different and foreign to me).
I can hear the difference between forward and back /j/s, at least when I produce them, and I fancy I've heard back /j/ from other speakers, but who knows.

[I think the backing of /S/ for me is to increase the distinction with /s/ - I sort of try to make /S/ maximally 'dark' and 'soft', with a lot of backing and some rounding and low tension.]

I don't have alveolar /r/ at all*, but I can produce and recognise both laminal and apical versions (well, I can't really tell if the laminal is 'alveolar' or 'postalveolar', but...). To me, the laminal sounds more like what you might call general modern urban british - that is, neither 'posh' nor 'rural' nor 'regional'. When I try to make that sound, the chief distinction from /j/ is probably sulcality, and generally greater tenseness and a quicker release - by the latter I mean that one distinctive feature of /r/ is the 'opening' tongue movement that involves the tongue drawing down a lot to create a larger cavity afterwards and possibly some shaping dorsally of some kind (although I can imagine a /r/ and /j/ that are virtually identical other than sulcality).


*My /r/ is labiodental instead (except in /tr/ and /dr/ clusters). It does however often have secondary sulcality and sometimes other subtler tongue-shaping stuff to enhance the rhoticity.

[anteallach]

My /j/ is definitely dorsal, and to the back of the various postalveolars, but I can make a laminal postalveolar approximant which sounds very much like it. I think the difference between that and my /r/, other than the co-articulations, is the shape of the tongue behind the constriction: it's raised much higher (i.e. palatalisation) for the [j]-like sound than for [ɹ]. So I think the [ɹ] can be reasonably described as "laminal flat postalveolar", similarly to how Ladefoged and Maddieson describe the Polish sz sound as opposed to the palatalised ś.

[akam chinjir]

*My /r/ is labiodental instead (except in /tr/ and /dr/ clusters). It does however often have secondary sulcality and sometimes other subtler tongue-shaping stuff to enhance the rhoticity.

How are you thinking of rhoticity here? (One of my reasons for being interested in this general topic I've gotten puzzled at the very idea of rhotics.)

[Kuchigakatai]

{c,sh,w}ouldn't've

[ˈkʰʊdn̩ʔəv]? [ˈʃʊdn̩əv] (so rather like "[ˈwʊdn:əv]")?

[Xwtek]

I wonder how do you pronounce Tabes (from We Bare Bears). I pronounce it [tʰeɪbz], but I can't resist pronouncing it [ta.bes] as it doesn't look like English name at all.

[Travis B.]

{c,sh,w}ouldn't've

[ˈkʰʊdn̩ʔəv]? [ˈʃʊdn̩əv] (so rather like "[ˈwʊdn:əv]")?

[ˈkʰɵːnːə(ː)] [ˈɕɵːnːə(ː)] [ˈwʊːnːə(ː)]

(I should note that the vowels are not nasalized in this case.)

[Nortaneous]

{c,sh,w}ouldn't've

[ˈkʰʊdn̩ʔəv]? [ˈʃʊdn̩əv] (so rather like "[ˈwʊdn:əv]")?

[{kʰ|ʃ|w}ʊdn̩ə(v)]

[Linguoboy]

I wonder how do you pronounce Tabes (from We Bare Bears). I pronounce it [tʰeɪbz], but I can't resist pronouncing it [ta.bes] as it doesn't look like English name at all.

This reminds me of a friend's German boyfriend who used to pronounce the brand name Hanes [ˈhaːnəs].

(It's not a surname I've seen before either but I have no problem saying /ˈteːbz/.)

So how do people say baths? Apparently I have [bæˑðz], which caused consternation among my coworkers today.

[quinterbeck]

So how do people say baths? Apparently I have [bæˑðz], which caused consternation among my coworkers today.

[bæˑðz] sounds very West Country/Cornish to me!

baths is very variable for me. I have [bɑθs] or [bæθs] only in careful speech - vowel depending on how northern I'm feeling (various social factors). I don't usually front my dentals but occasionally I have [bɑfs]~[bæfs] in quick speech, though more often [θs] kind of merges into [s̪s] or something?? (So I guess I have [bæs̪s]?)

[Travis B.]

So how do people say baths? Apparently I have [bæˑðz], which caused consternation among my coworkers today.

That sounds like a very normal pronunciation to me - phonemically I have the same pronunciation, /bæðz/, aside from the occasional moment where I would say /bæz/. Of course I raise the vowel and devoice the consonants (but with a long vowel), but that is just minor phonetic detail.

[Nortaneous]

Probably bæθs, but only because ðz is hard to pronounce, and in monomorphemic words the ð is regularly lost. (clothes = close)

It's also not unheard of for people to say "clothing" instead of "clothes" to avoid the ðz cluster - they know it 'should' be ðz from spelling, but that's hard to pronounce.

[Darren]

Anything with a voiced consonant would seem really odd to me; I've only heard /bɐːθs/ or a variant like [bɐːfs] etc. Same with paths /pɐːθs/, which is the only rhyming word I can think of. I would also say /kləu̯ðz/ for clothes.

[KathTheDragon]

ðz is hard to pronounce

Interesting, I don't find it that difficult.

I say [bɑθs~bɑːðz]

[Richard W]

If not speaking carefully, then verb: /baːθs/ noun: /baːvz/.

[Salmoneus]

I'm surprised by so many people retaining the voiced plurals - it comes across as very old-fashioned and upper-class to me. I have devoicing in all of them except 'clothes'.

Although, come to think of it, in more idiomatic uses where the link to the singular has been broken, I can have the voiced version. So devoiced literal "mouths" (more than one oral orifice), but voiced metaphorical "mouths" (in metonymous expressions like "a lot of mouths to feed"). And devoiced "truths" in a logical sense (things that are true), but possibly voiced in fixed expressions like "home truths".