Linguistic Miscellany Thread

[Vijay]

I think it's just a matter of speaker-to-speaker variation.

[Kuchigakatai]

Is there anyone who can shed some light on the -ong final of Mandarin? Written sources tend to say that it's [ʊŋ], and when I took a course in Mandarin, our teacher said to pronounce it [ʊŋ], not [oŋ]. But I've seen claims here on ZBB that people actually do say [oŋ], and I think I too have heard that pronunciation from Chinese people.

And here I'm like, what is the difference between [ʊ] and [o] even? Is it not just an individual linguist's preference? If we mean mid-high [o], that is, and we do.

I mean, vowel sounds aren't specific points on a grid, somehow matching the IPA symbols perfectly. They're ranges... It doesn't have to be speaker-to-speaker variation either.

[Qwynegold]

And here I'm like, what is the difference between [ʊ] and [o] even? Is it not just an individual linguist's preference? If we mean mid-high [o], that is, and we do.

Huh! I can't hear the difference between [ U] and [ u], but [o] is totally different to me.

Let me ask this way then, if you have a conlang with the back vowels /u/ and /o/ (/o/ can be realized as mid high, mid or mid low), how would you borrow Mandarin words with -ong into that conlang?

[dɮ the phoneme]

Well, both [ u] and [ ʊ] are plainly distinct for me as an English speaker, and naively, neither sound remotely close to e.g. Spanish or Japanese [o]. If I didn't know any linguistics, I don't think I'd classify these vowels as similar at all.

I too feel like I've heard Mandarin speakers with [o] in -ong, but I don't really know much about Mandarin, so take that with a grain of salt.

[Zju]

Kuchigakatai hit the nail on this one. Realisations of vowel phonemes are never points where a dart has been thrown at the IPA vowel chart. Instead, they are areas in the vowel space. Or, arguably volumes in the vowel space, since roundedness is an extra dimension. Or, hypervolumes, when the language distinguishes more than three qualities in its vowels, such as length or nasalisation or pharyngalisation or whatever. IPA characters are merely substitutes, references for those. And, of course, phonemes between different languages in principle cannot be compared and contrasted, seeing as a phoneme makes sense only in its phonological system. (but still, in some special circumstances it is done, and it could be argued that it does make sense)

edit: infact, I think the only reason that we describe them with discrete symbols, instead of areas, is that there isn't really a convinient way of conveying an arbitrary area in text.

[bradrn]

Well, both [ u] and [ ʊ] are plainly distinct for me as an English speaker, and naively, neither sound remotely close to e.g. Spanish or Japanese [o]. If I didn't know any linguistics, I don't think I'd classify these vowels as similar at all.

By contrast, I can distinguish [u] and [ʊ], but when I listen to a recording of someone saying [o] (e.g. the one on Wikipedia), I find that it sounds exactly like [ʊ]. Perhaps I might find it easier if I were to hear the distinction in context… but e.g. I tried listening to some recordings of Portuguese from the UCLA phonetics lab, and it doesn’t help (though this time both [o] and [ʊ] sound like [o] to me).

[Travis B.]

Well, both [ u] and [ ʊ] are plainly distinct for me as an English speaker, and naively, neither sound remotely close to e.g. Spanish or Japanese [o]. If I didn't know any linguistics, I don't think I'd classify these vowels as similar at all.

By contrast, I can distinguish [u] and [ʊ], but when I listen to a recording of someone saying [o] (e.g. the one on Wikipedia), I find that it sounds exactly like [ʊ]. Perhaps I might find it easier if I were to hear the distinction in context… but e.g. I tried listening to some recordings of Portuguese from the UCLA phonetics lab, and it doesn’t help (though this time both [o] and [ʊ] sound like [o] to me).

Going by the examples on the wiki, my [o] is mid, not close-mid; and actual close-mid [o] sounds not that different from [ʊ] to me.

[bradrn]

Well, both [ u] and [ ʊ] are plainly distinct for me as an English speaker, and naively, neither sound remotely close to e.g. Spanish or Japanese [o]. If I didn't know any linguistics, I don't think I'd classify these vowels as similar at all.

By contrast, I can distinguish [u] and [ʊ], but when I listen to a recording of someone saying [o] (e.g. the one on Wikipedia), I find that it sounds exactly like [ʊ]. Perhaps I might find it easier if I were to hear the distinction in context… but e.g. I tried listening to some recordings of Portuguese from the UCLA phonetics lab, and it doesn’t help (though this time both [o] and [ʊ] sound like [o] to me).

Going by the examples on the wiki, my [o] is mid, not close-mid; and actual close-mid [o] sounds not that different from [ʊ] to me.

That’s the conclusion I came to as well. (You’ll note that I always transcribe my /e o/ as [e̟ o̟].)

[dɮ the phoneme]

That’s the conclusion I came to as well. (You’ll note that I always transcribe my /e o/ as [e̟ o̟].)

Hmm, perhaps what I'm calling [o] is indeed closer to [o̞]. Of course, these are vague phonetic targets to begin with, not exact points as the IPA might imply.

Anyway, here's a recording of me (attempting to) pronounce the following: [oʊ̯] - boat (English), [ʉʊ̯] - boot (English), [ ʊ] - book (English), [ u] - mucho (Spanish), [o] - koto (Japanese).

https://voca.ro/1EJkc1KFO0hT

Bear in mind, I am not a native speaker of Spanish or Japanese, though I am very confident on my pronunciation of the latter.

[Kuchigakatai]

Huh! I can't hear the difference between [ U] and [ u], but [o] is totally different to me.

Let me ask this way then, if you have a conlang with the back vowels /u/ and /o/ (/o/ can be realized as mid high, mid or mid low), how would you borrow Mandarin words with -ong into that conlang?

Could be either way, could be /u/, could be /o/. Depends on how wide the vowel space ranges of /u/ and /o/ are. People can also be very influenced by spelling in those cases, if they know how a word is spelled in the source language.

One thing I notice among Spanish speakers from El Salvador is a certain variation in how English NURSE and STRUT are adapted. Some choose /o/ and others /a/, or a mix of the two. For example, I like saying "Burnaby" /ˈbɜ˞nəbi/ with /o/ in Spanish, but my own father insists on saying it with /a/.

Regarding influence of spellings, you can also notice how Spanish speakers everywhere tend to pronounce the English schwa with the letter it is written. So "about" begins with (the Spanish) /a/, and "electric" with /e/, and "abbot" has /o/ in the second syllable. And even "column" can be read with /u/ in the second syllable, although maybe more typically /o/ or /a/ (e.g. [ˈko̞lo̞m]).

Anyway, here's a recording of me (attempting to) pronounce the following: [oʊ̯] - boat (English), [ʉʊ̯] - boot (English), [ ʊ] - book (English), [ u] - mucho (Spanish), [o] - koto (Japanese).

https://voca.ro/1EJkc1KFO0hT

Bear in mind, I am not a native speaker of Spanish or Japanese, though I am very confident on my pronunciation of the latter.

A very open [ɔ] for Japanese /o/, sounds good to me.

By the way, although I just noticed the Wikipedia article on Japanese phonology says nothing about vowel quality allophones, as a Spanish speaker I notice the Japanese /a/ is sometimes very retracted to something like [ɑ ɒ]. And I notice this because sometimes I can't tell whether a speaker is saying /a/ or /o/. When watching Attack on Titan, the name Mikasa very often sounds like "Mikoso" [mikɔsɔ] to me... Surely an allophone of /a/ after /k/ is involved in here.

[dɮ the phoneme]

By the way, although I just noticed the Wikipedia article on Japanese phonology says nothing about vowel quality allophones, as a Spanish speaker I notice the Japanese /a/ is sometimes very retracted to something like [ɑ ɒ]. And I notice this because sometimes I can't tell whether a speaker is saying /a/ or /o/. When watching Attack on Titan, the name Mikasa very often sounds like "Mikoso" [mikɔsɔ] to me... Surely an allophone of /a/ after /k/ is involved in here.

I've noticed this as well. Often /k/ is retracted before retracted /a/ as well, leading to something approaching [qɑ] (listen to the /ka/ in this video at 0:24).

[Qwynegold]

Could be either way, could be /u/, could be /o/. Depends on how wide the vowel space ranges of /u/ and /o/ are. People can also be very influenced by spelling in those cases, if they know how a word is spelled in the source language.

Hmm, I made this:

O-o-U.png (29.87 KiB) Viewed 10587 times

It's not very good, because for Mandarin I just had to guess what ranges that vowel has. I couldn't find any chart of this kind for Mandarin that also included the allophones. Except for this: https://images.app.goo.gl/z1Dp7jf29aMaJvD66 But is it trustworthy? [ʊ] is an allophone of /u/, right? And in that chart the realizations of /u/ have a very limited range.

If we go by my guesswork, Mandarin [ʊ] overlaps with about as much of the /u/ as the /o/ in my conlang. If we go by the chart in the link, it probably mostly just overlaps with my /u/. But then you also have a good point about the spelling. *sigh* I don't have anything to make me definitely decide for one thing or the other.

[Vijay]

I'm puzzled about the etymology of Gegenwart in German. How does "againstward" come to mean 'present'?

[Creyeditor]

I always thought it was a calque on Latin praesens, with <wart> being a form of <sein> 'to be' and <gegen> a strange archaic translation of <prae>.

[Vijay]

-wart here apparently has nothing to do with sein and is cognate with -ward as in eastward.

[Creyeditor]

That IS surprising. At least they were morphologically related in Proto-Germanic then. So it's not a calque after all. I can't find something on Zukunft right now (except it means 'that which is to come'). Is Vergangenheit the only Latin calque then?

[Kuchigakatai]

I'm puzzled about the etymology of Gegenwart in German. How does "againstward" come to mean 'present'?

Maybe it's "against" in the sense of "being in front of (against) someone as an obstacle". That is, the present is the thing right in front of you, "againstward" you.

[KathTheDragon]

Consulting the German dictionary I use as a reference all the time, gegen has way more meanings than just "against".

[Moose-tache]

Wiktionary seems to think that in Proto-Germanic, "against" was the meaning with the accusative, and "toward" with the dative. The common thread there seems to be being in front of something, which could be related to the present pretty easily.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I'm a bit surprised the German word isn't just a cognate to English now, something like Nühe, Nü or Nau (a cognate nun does appear to exist, but not to have this meaning), similar to how English can use "here and now" to mean something similar.