retroflex and coronal consonants

[evmdbm]

A conlang inspired question - albeit not about a conlang. I seem to have got into a muddle in trying to set out the phonology of one of my languages. As I understand it retroflex indicates the fact the tongue is curled up, although they are all articulated as post-alveolar (or palato-aveolar, which I've always taken to be the same thing)and they might be apical - if made with the tip of the tongue - or sub-apical if made with the underside of the tongue, depending on the degree of curl.

My question - assuming I haven't misunderstood everything - is whether you could have retroflex consonants articulated at other points - maybe dental (?) - or whether they would have to be a different type of coronal consonants and if so, whether retroflex simply indicates a greater amount of curl to the tongue which pushes the point of articulation back.

If none of that makes sense, I'll settle for a better explanation of retroflex...

Duncan

[Pabappa]

Retroflex is a single point if articulation, so you can't have retroflex dentals or retroflex anything else. A dental consonant might be produced with the underside of the tongue, but to me it sounds the same as the standard dental so I wouldn't think a distinction would be possible if the speakers are humans with the same anatomy as us. I've seen retroflex palatals in a conlang whose creator specifically noted that their tongues are more flexible than ours; while theoretically a distinction between retroflex palatals vs traditional retros could be made in an earth language, the difficulty of articulation would likely soon eliminate the distinction.

whether retroflex simply indicates a greater amount of curl to the tongue which pushes the point of articulation back.

that sounds right.

[akam chinjir]

Ladefoged and Maddieson, The Sounds of the World's Languages (25-28), distinguish between subapical palatals (which they seem to think are the true retroflexes) and apical postalveolars, though they say they don't know of any language that contrasts them. They mention Toda, Tamil, and Telugu (all Dravidian languages) as examples of languages with subapical palatals.

[evmdbm]

Thanks. I like it when I find I was right before I confused myself!

[anteallach]

Ladefoged and Maddieson, The Sounds of the World's Languages (25-28), distinguish between subapical palatals (which they seem to think are the true retroflexes) and apical postalveolars, though they say they don't know of any language that contrasts them. They mention Toda, Tamil, and Telugu (all Dravidian languages) as examples of languages with subapical palatals.

That's what they say for stops; later on in the book, where they discuss sibilants, they say that Toda distinguishes apical postalveolar and subapical palatal sibilants (p156).

Another complication is that some sibilants described as retroflexes, such as the Polish sz sound, are actually laminal; L & M call them "laminal flat postalveolars". (The "flat" here refers to the lack of palatalisation compared with other postalveolar sibilants.)

[kodé]

The confusing thing about the term "retroflex" is that it combines both place of the passive articulator (either postalveolar or palatal) and shape of the active articulator = the tongue (either apical or sub-apical). Because of the geography of the vocal tract, you tend to get subapical + palatal (since the tongue has to curl up a bunch to hit the underside with the roof of the mouth) and apical + postalveolar (because the tip of the tongue can only reach so far back).

Ladefoged and Maddieson, The Sounds of the World's Languages (25-28), distinguish between subapical palatals (which they seem to think are the true retroflexes) and apical postalveolars, though they say they don't know of any language that contrasts them. They mention Toda, Tamil, and Telugu (all Dravidian languages) as examples of languages with subapical palatals.

That's what they say for stops; later on in the book, where they discuss sibilants, they say that Toda distinguishes apical postalveolar and subapical palatal sibilants (p156).

Another complication is that some sibilants described as retroflexes, such as the Polish sz sound, are actually laminal; L & M call them "laminal flat postalveolars". (The "flat" here refers to the lack of palatalisation compared with other postalveolar sibilants.)

Interesting about Polish. Makes me wonder if all the "retroflex" stops in different Australian languages are all the same, or how they vary. I think in a typical Australian system the "retroflex" stop is apical and either postalveolar or palatal and it contrasts with an apical alveolar stop and a laminal palatal/postalveolar stop. Surely there's some variation, though?

[Frislander]

Interesting about Polish. Makes me wonder if all the "retroflex" stops in different Australian languages are all the same, or how they vary. I think in a typical Australian system the "retroflex" stop is apical and either postalveolar or palatal and it contrasts with an apical alveolar stop and a laminal palatal/postalveolar stop. Surely there's some variation, though?

The impression I get looking at Australian languages is because of the high number of coronal contrasts they try to maximise the distance between them in terms of articulation. So compared to a situation like in Hindi where the stop contrast is basically an apical/laminal contrast at almost the same place, an Australian language would be more like to articulate the retroflexes as such (though this may not be the case as you travel further east, since on the east coast many languages lack retroflexes altogther). Similarly in the languages which do have dentals it's quite common (if not ubiquitous) to articulate them as true interdentals, rather than as a more typical European denti-alveolar. They also pattern quite strongly with the palatal stops, e.g. the palatals are found before /i/ and the dentals elsewhere.

[anteallach]

Ladefoged and Maddieson imply that both subapical palatal and apical postalveolar types of retroflexes are found in Australia. On p27 they state that subapical palatals "also occur in Australian languages", but when discussing Arrernte (p28) and Yanyuwa (p35) they describe the sounds as apical postalveolar. They give a citation to The Phonetics of Australian Languages by Andrew Butcher.

[Vijay]

Apparently, subapical palatals are the typical retroflexes even for speakers of Indo-Aryan languages or at least for Hindi-speakers.

[Travis B.]

Apparently, subapical palatals are the typical retroflexes even for speakers of Indo-Aryan languages or at least for Hindi-speakers.

It feels weird to think that native Hindi speakers would, when speaking English, render /t/ as a subapical palatal stop (to contrast with /θ/ as a dental stop).

[Atom]

Apparently, subapical palatals are the typical retroflexes even for speakers of Indo-Aryan languages or at least for Hindi-speakers.

It feels weird to think that native Hindi speakers would, when speaking English, render /t/ as a subapical palatal stop (to contrast with /θ/ as a dental stop).

I've been learning Malayalam which constrasts dental/alveolar/retroflex and it is super confusing how native speakers understand English /t/, /d/, /n/ and /θ/. There are constraints about where alveolars can show up that I think that determine this along with familiarity to English.

To my ears as an L1 English speaker dentals and alveolars sound very very similar and retroflexes don't sound the same at all.

[Vijay]

It feels weird to think that native Hindi speakers would, when speaking English, render /t/ as a subapical palatal stop (to contrast with /θ/ as a dental stop).

They're not really palatal stops, though. "Subapical palatal" just refers to the tongue shape (it's articulated with the underside of the tongue rather than the dorsum/upper surface).

[Frislander]

I will note that English apical alveolar stops are frequently some degree of palatalised anyway, especially in British English. Often when you do the phonetic analysis you find that it's frequently better to transcribe it as something like [ts] than as [t]. Similarly, one can point to borrowing patterns in Goidelic languages, since those languages show a similar contrast to Indian languages between a dental (broad) and an alveolar (slender) series (with the additional complication that the alveolar stop is also palatalised). Tellingly, for Scottish Gaelic frequently English alveolar stops are borrowed as slender rather than broad, e.g. tiocaid "ticket", teanas "tennis", bonaid "bonnet", bracaist "breakfast", croit "croft" (which are typically pronounced something like [ˈt͡ʃʰiʰkət͡ʃ], [ˈt͡ʃʰanəs], [ˈponat͡ʃ], [ˈpɾaʰkəʃt͡ʃ], [ˈkɾoʰt͡ʃ]). Contrast brot [ˈpɾoʰt] "soup" from English "broth". There interestingly is an alternative strategy where the same series is borrowed as broad but with a paragogic schwa (this also seems to be a common strategy for other consonants as well), e.g. seada "shed", liosta "list". I'm not sure at this point which is the older strategy or which one represents a greater degree of nativisation, but my intuition says the former and that the latter is the more modern phenomenon as speakers gained a greater degree of English proficiency.

So clearly at least with British English (American English may be different in this regard) the alveolar stop is sufficiently consistently alveolar that speakers who have a contrast between dentals and alveolars will fairly consistently place it in the latter category.

[Travis B.]

I will note that English apical alveolar stops are frequently some degree of palatalised anyway, especially in British English. Often when you do the phonetic analysis you find that it's frequently better to transcribe it as something like [ts] than as [t]. Similarly, one can point to borrowing patterns in Goidelic languages, since those languages show a similar contrast to Indian languages between a dental (broad) and an alveolar (slender) series (with the additional complication that the alveolar stop is also palatalised). Tellingly, for Scottish Gaelic frequently English alveolar stops are borrowed as slender rather than broad, e.g. tiocaid "ticket", teanas "tennis", bonaid "bonnet", bracaist "breakfast", croit "croft" (which are typically pronounced something like [ˈt͡ʃʰiʰkət͡ʃ], [ˈt͡ʃʰanəs], [ˈponat͡ʃ], [ˈpɾaʰkəʃt͡ʃ], [ˈkɾoʰt͡ʃ]). Contrast brot [ˈpɾoʰt] "soup" from English "broth". There interestingly is an alternative strategy where the same series is borrowed as broad but with a paragogic schwa (this also seems to be a common strategy for other consonants as well), e.g. seada "shed", liosta "list". I'm not sure at this point which is the older strategy or which one represents a greater degree of nativisation, but my intuition says the former and that the latter is the more modern phenomenon as speakers gained a greater degree of English proficiency.

So clearly at least with British English (American English may be different in this regard) the alveolar stop is sufficiently consistently alveolar that speakers who have a contrast between dentals and alveolars will fairly consistently place it in the latter category.

I don't know about NAE as a whole, but the English here has an audible difference between a non-palatalized and a palatalized /s/ or /t/ (which may be affricated as a result) (all alveolar and postalveolar consonants to me at least can be palatalized, but it's not as audible with most), before /w uː ʊ ɜr~ər/ and in clusters like /st sp sm sn sl sw ks ɡs rs ls/. There was a funny lawyer commercial here years ago where the person in it kept on pronouncing twenty as [ˈtɕʰwʌ̃ɾ̃i(ː)]...

[Nortaneous]

So clearly at least with British English (American English may be different in this regard) the alveolar stop is sufficiently consistently alveolar that speakers who have a contrast between dentals and alveolars will fairly consistently place it in the latter category.

The Forth and Bargy dialect developed a dental/alveolar contrast through fortition of θ ð, but there are some secondary t̪ d̪ shifts - at least str > st̪r, probably more that I can't remember off the top of my head

[anteallach]

I will note that English apical alveolar stops are frequently some degree of palatalised anyway, especially in British English. Often when you do the phonetic analysis you find that it's frequently better to transcribe it as something like [ts] than as [t]. Similarly, one can point to borrowing patterns in Goidelic languages, since those languages show a similar contrast to Indian languages between a dental (broad) and an alveolar (slender) series (with the additional complication that the alveolar stop is also palatalised). Tellingly, for Scottish Gaelic frequently English alveolar stops are borrowed as slender rather than broad, e.g. tiocaid "ticket", teanas "tennis", bonaid "bonnet", bracaist "breakfast", croit "croft" (which are typically pronounced something like [ˈt͡ʃʰiʰkət͡ʃ], [ˈt͡ʃʰanəs], [ˈponat͡ʃ], [ˈpɾaʰkəʃt͡ʃ], [ˈkɾoʰt͡ʃ]). Contrast brot [ˈpɾoʰt] "soup" from English "broth". There interestingly is an alternative strategy where the same series is borrowed as broad but with a paragogic schwa (this also seems to be a common strategy for other consonants as well), e.g. seada "shed", liosta "list". I'm not sure at this point which is the older strategy or which one represents a greater degree of nativisation, but my intuition says the former and that the latter is the more modern phenomenon as speakers gained a greater degree of English proficiency.

I wonder whether the timing of the development of affrication of the slender coronal stops in Scottish Gaelic is relevant here. I think that is a fairly recent development, in most varieties anyway.

If you take something like Munster Irish (where the slender stop is an unaffricated alveolar and the broad one is dental) then it seems very natural that English /t/ and /d/ would be seen as corresponding to the slender stops and /θ/ and /ð/ to the broad ones (and of course the latter are often pronounced as dental stops in Hiberno-English).

[Frislander]

I will note that English apical alveolar stops are frequently some degree of palatalised anyway, especially in British English. Often when you do the phonetic analysis you find that it's frequently better to transcribe it as something like [ts] than as [t]. Similarly, one can point to borrowing patterns in Goidelic languages, since those languages show a similar contrast to Indian languages between a dental (broad) and an alveolar (slender) series (with the additional complication that the alveolar stop is also palatalised). Tellingly, for Scottish Gaelic frequently English alveolar stops are borrowed as slender rather than broad, e.g. tiocaid "ticket", teanas "tennis", bonaid "bonnet", bracaist "breakfast", croit "croft" (which are typically pronounced something like [ˈt͡ʃʰiʰkət͡ʃ], [ˈt͡ʃʰanəs], [ˈponat͡ʃ], [ˈpɾaʰkəʃt͡ʃ], [ˈkɾoʰt͡ʃ]). Contrast brot [ˈpɾoʰt] "soup" from English "broth". There interestingly is an alternative strategy where the same series is borrowed as broad but with a paragogic schwa (this also seems to be a common strategy for other consonants as well), e.g. seada "shed", liosta "list". I'm not sure at this point which is the older strategy or which one represents a greater degree of nativisation, but my intuition says the former and that the latter is the more modern phenomenon as speakers gained a greater degree of English proficiency.

I wonder whether the timing of the development of affrication of the slender coronal stops in Scottish Gaelic is relevant here. I think that is a fairly recent development, in most varieties anyway.

If you take something like Munster Irish (where the slender stop is an unaffricated alveolar and the broad one is dental) then it seems very natural that English /t/ and /d/ would be seen as corresponding to the slender stops and /θ/ and /ð/ to the broad ones (and of course the latter are often pronounced as dental stops in Hiberno-English).

That is a good point, I recall that Islay reportedly behaves like Ulster Irish as with many things and retains the stopped pronunciation of slender coronals.

There's also and interesting question with regards to the paragogic schwa, because it's found with a good number of loans regardless of the consonant (see also e.g. geama "game", trèana "train", mapa "map", drama "dram" (Wiktionary seems to think it's dràm, but learngaelic.net only has drama and the pocket dictionary I have has both dram and drama). I'm still somewhat at a loss as to why the extra schwa; is it to avoid slenderisation shenanigans perhaps?