Linguistic Miscellany Thread

[dhok]

Both Portuguese and Italian have inverno, which suggests an irregular lenition of *b in this word.

[Kuchigakatai]

Both Portuguese and Italian have inverno, which suggests an irregular lenition of *b in this word.

Yeah, but consider most h's and many b's pronounced [ B] are reformed spellings from the 18th century in Spanish: hombre and amaba were omne/omre/ombre and amaua/amava before.

[mae]

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[Kuchigakatai]

I'm not sure whether you guys intend to contradict me or not... I mean, I know about Old Spanish yuierno, but the outcome in medieval pronunciation is irrelevant in the general patterns of today's orthography. Old Spanish had amaua but in today's rules we write amaba. Hence invierno should be regularized to himbierno.

My thinking here is, if Spanish is going to keep etymological h's, b's and v's around, it should at least do it with consistent rules.

[Richard W]

But did <b> v. <v> word initially and after consonants once reflect a phonetic difference? It's not so long ago that good Spanish was supposed to distinguish /b/ and /v/ in at least some positions.

[missals]

But did <b> v. <v> word initially and after consonants once reflect a phonetic difference? It's not so long ago that good Spanish was supposed to distinguish /b/ and /v/ in at least some positions.

Yes, I don't know the details of the contrast, but it was different than in Latin and the medieval orthography reflected the medieval pronunciation to one extent or another. But after the contrast was neutralized by the late 1500s, the Academia Real instituted a reform that completely changed the distribution of the letters <b> and <v>, making them conform entirely to the Latin etymology (in principle), with the medieval pronunciation being irrelevant.

[mae]

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[Nortaneous]

Hence invierno should be regularized to himbierno.

Ah, yes, the season of the Himbo Inferno.

[Ryusenshi]

Does someone know a language that contrasts velar stops [k, g] and palatal stops [c, ɟ] (or palatalized [kʲ, gʲ])? If you do, could you give me a minimal pair?

I'm trying to write a text to explain the notion of phonemes and allophones. French has noticeable allophony for /k, g/ which are indeed velar [k, g] before back vowels, but palatal [c, ɟ] before front vowels, and I thought it would be nice to show that this distinction can be phonemic in other languages. But I can't find a minimal pair.

[Pabappa]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian ... Consonants
Also Irish Gaelic if you call the broad consonants "plain".

some slavic lanmguages have a contrast between plain and palatalized velars, but its minimal because historically those sounds were pushed further forward and became /š/, /s/, etc.

sorry i dont know about minimal pairs but they should be possible to find.

edit: also modern Greek has k vs kʲ, represented orthographically by, e.g. <ko> vs <kio> spellings.

[Ryusenshi]

I had already looked at Hungarian, Russian and Irish, but couldn't find a minimal pair.

Thanks for the tip about Greek, though: one article gives Κιάτο [ˈcato] (a town name) and κάτω [ˈkato] (“down”).

[Zaarin]

Does someone know a language that contrasts velar stops [k, g] and palatal stops [c, ɟ] (or palatalized [kʲ, gʲ])? If you do, could you give me a minimal pair?

I'm trying to write a text to explain the notion of phonemes and allophones. French has noticeable allophony for /k, g/ which are indeed velar [k, g] before back vowels, but palatal [c, ɟ] before front vowels, and I thought it would be nice to show that this distinction can be phonemic in other languages. But I can't find a minimal pair.

Tsimshian does, as do some of the Athabaskan languages, I believe.

[Vijay]

In the Connacht and Ulster varieties of Irish, at least, apparently, this exists:

caor /kiːɾˠ/ 'berry, round thing, ball, glowing object'
cíor /ciːɾˠ/ 'comb, crest, honeycomb, cud'

In Hungarian:

meg [ˈmɛɡ] 'and, plus (as in one plus one)'
megy [ˈmɛɟ] 'to go'

[Linguoboy]

In the Connacht and Ulster varieties of Irish, at least, apparently, this exists:

caor /kiːɾˠ/ 'berry, round thing, ball, glowing object'
cíor /ciːɾˠ/ 'comb, crest, honeycomb, cud'

Similarly, caoch “blind” vs cíoch “breast”.

These don’t work in Munster, however, where ao typically represents/e:/. One pair that does work in all dialects is:

ciúb “cube” vs cúb “coop”

[Nortaneous]

Does someone know a language that contrasts velar stops [k, g] and palatal stops [c, ɟ] (or palatalized [kʲ, gʲ])? If you do, could you give me a minimal pair?

I'm trying to write a text to explain the notion of phonemes and allophones. French has noticeable allophony for /k, g/ which are indeed velar [k, g] before back vowels, but palatal [c, ɟ] before front vowels, and I thought it would be nice to show that this distinction can be phonemic in other languages. But I can't find a minimal pair.

Japhug Rgyalrong:
/cʰa/ "alcohol"
/kʰa/ "house"

/co/ "valley"
/kjo/ "drag"

[Ryusenshi]

caor /kiːɾˠ/ 'berry, round thing, ball, glowing object'
cíor /ciːɾˠ/ 'comb, crest, honeycomb, cud'
meg [ˈmɛɡ] 'and, plus (as in one plus one)'
megy [ˈmɛɟ] 'to go'

Similarly, caoch “blind” vs cíoch “breast”.
ciúb “cube” vs cúb “coop”

/cʰa/ "alcohol"
/kʰa/ "house"

Great examples. Thank you, everybody.

[Tropylium]

A few examples from Võro with palatalized velars:
olg /olk/ 'shoulder'
olg' /olkʲ/ 'straw'
vang /ʋɑŋk/ 'handle'
vang' /ʋɑŋkʲ/ 'prisoner'

[quinterbeck]

Is there a term for when an underspecified phoneme becomes specified in a certain environment? For example I have underspecified /c/ appearing as [tʲ] and [kʲ] in free variation, but always [tʲ] after /n/. Anyone suggest a better term than 'POA specification'?

[dhok]

That's kind of like the Americanist concept of a morphophoneme, but not the same--e.g. Menominee has a morphophoneme |N| that is realized as /s/ before /e e: j/ and /n/ before other vowels. But both /n/ and /s/ are independently phonemic.

[akam chinjir]

Another possibility is "archiphoneme," maybe.