tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post6184904068368757869..comments2024-03-17T09:14:13.950+00:00Comments on John Wells’s phonetic blog: quarksJohn Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.comBlogger44125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-8994260054394869102011-03-20T00:47:51.945+00:002011-03-20T00:47:51.945+00:00in Austria they have [x] because [ɐ̯] is not a fro...<i>in Austria they have [x] because [ɐ̯] is not a front vowel</i><br /><br />Or because the dialects here already have [ɪɐ̯] and [ʊɐ̯] in the sound system even in cases where there is no etymological /r/ involved.<br /><br />Please tell me if my monologues are becoming tiring. I am, after all, not very close to the topic anymore.David Marjanovićnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-66067708237896357982011-03-20T00:41:46.605+00:002011-03-20T00:41:46.605+00:00Disclaimer: I have heard Germans, probably from so...Disclaimer: I have heard Germans, probably from somewhere in the northwest, retain consonantal /r/ in front of consonants. Before I read about the partial rhoticity of some such accents on Wikipedia a few years ago, however, I thought these were all hypercorrectivisms or deliberate exaggerations for emphasis; since then, I haven't heard many people from that area speak.<br /><br />Similarly...<br /><br /><i>I've read about this mystical [aɐ̯], but I've never heard it, neither in meatspace nor on TV.</i><br /><br />It's of course possible that I've heard it, but failed to notice it because I didn't think it possible. But, perhaps due to my upbringing (regular exposure to Serbian and French since early childhood) or to my general pedantry (if I may say so myself), I do tend to be fairly good at noticing phonetic details that don't occur or have a different distribution in my accents. For instance, on Friday, I heard someone make a phone call in English with the weak French accent that well-educated French people of my generation have; I recognized the accent due to such things as the use of laminal alveolars and of [ɑi̯] instead of [ɑɪ̯] – the closest sound most accents of German use is [aɪ̯], and the closest both of my German accents (Standard and dialect) have to offer is [ɛ̞ɪ̯].David Marjanovićnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-44592450551550793032011-03-20T00:23:41.405+00:002011-03-20T00:23:41.405+00:00In those in which I've heard the word – not ma...In those in which I've heard the word – not many. Austrian Standard German is one of them.<br /><br />The nickname <i>Karli</i> and the rare female form <i>Karla</i> /ˈkaːla/ do not have three syllables, though. I suppose /l/ only becomes syllabic when there is no underlying vowel next to it on either side, and the decay products of |r| don't count as vowels for this purpose.<br /><br />(They do for others, regionally at least. Famously, /x/ is [ç] behind consonants; as a rule of thumb, in Germany, <i>durch</i> and <i>Kirche</i> have [ç] because |r| is a consonant, in Austria they have [x] because [ɐ̯] is not a front vowel.)<br /><br />===========<br /><br />Of course I made a typo in "<i>Arzt</i> is [aːt͡t]": it's [aːt͡st].David Marjanovićnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-87837946452638858482011-03-18T14:42:04.210+00:002011-03-18T14:42:04.210+00:00In what accents(s)?In what accents(s)?Phillip Mindenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16801818752833289089noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-35635873887475508162011-03-18T12:56:36.893+00:002011-03-18T12:56:36.893+00:00Do you really mean Karl is kaːl̩?
Yes, absolutely...<i>Do you really mean <i>Karl</i> is <b>kaːl̩</b>?</i><br /><br />Yes, absolutely.David Marjanovićnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-65013129895289812722011-03-18T09:38:01.786+00:002011-03-18T09:38:01.786+00:00Do you really mean Karl is kaːl̩? I don't thin...Do you really mean <i>Karl</i> is <b>kaːl̩</b>? I don't think this is so in any accent. In some accents, you might have <b>ka(ː)rl̩</b>.Phillip Mindenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16801818752833289089noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-27905983458326003772011-03-17T21:15:35.590+00:002011-03-17T21:15:35.590+00:00When I say /kva:k/ I imitate the sound of a frog; ...<i>When I say /kva:k/ I imitate the sound of a frog; /kvaɐk/ stands for both - particle and curd cheese.</i><br /><br />Way too late, but I can't let this stand uncommented. :-) I've read about this mystical [aɐ̯], but I've never heard it, neither in meatspace nor on TV. In all Standard German this Austrian has encountered, /ar/ and /aːr/ have fully merged into /aː/. <i>Vater</i> is <i>Fahrt</i> with [ɐ] tacked on to the end: [faːt], [ˈfaːtɐ]; <i>hart</i> [haːt] and <i>zart</i> [t͡saːt] rhyme, and the reason they don't rhyme for me with <i>Saat</i> [saːd̥] is... oh dear. Doesn't apply to Germany. Let's talk about something else. :-) Yes, <i>naher</i> has two syllables. <i>Arzt</i> is [aːt͡t] (preceded by a glottal stop if utterance-initial). <i>Saar</i> and <i>sah</i> are homophones, and so are <i>stark</i> and <i>stak</i> (...to resurrect a rather obsolete past-tense form, as phonologists love to do).<br /><br />Note that none of this can be blamed on Bavarian-Austrian dialects. In those, /a/ and /aː/ have merged as the open rounded back or central vowel, [ɒ] or [ɒ̈], and that sound has no problem forming a diphthong with [ɐ̯]: <i>Haar</i>, standard [haː], is [hɒ̈ɐ̯] in my dialect, analogously [hɒ̈ɐ̯t], [t͡sɒ̈ɐ̯t], [fɒ̈ɐ̯t], [ɒ̈ɐ̯t͡st] and so on.<br /><br /><i>Karl</i> has a syllabic /l/; in Standard German, that's the only difference to the monosyllabic <i>kahl</i>.David Marjanovićnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-90222930010952032932011-02-14T20:00:45.748+00:002011-02-14T20:00:45.748+00:00Oh, BTW, Feynman is a sweet example of New-York-st...Oh, BTW, Feynman is a sweet example of New-York-style variable rhoticity. (Sorry for going OT. But only slightly ;)wjarekhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07871668374161722713noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-13311450802609228392011-02-14T19:58:15.158+00:002011-02-14T19:58:15.158+00:00For the record (re physicists): I've just been...For the record (re physicists): I've just been watching* an interview with Richard Feynman, and he very definitely says <i>quark</i> to rhyme with <i>stork</i>: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0KST3Xj38o&feature=player_detailpage#t=205s" rel="nofollow">link to YouTube</a>.<br /><br />(*) That's where you end up if you follow slightly OT links from Language Log. Linguistics FTW!wjarekhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07871668374161722713noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-56145096067581843952011-02-11T14:54:37.655+00:002011-02-11T14:54:37.655+00:00Slightly surprised that nobody has yet pointed out...Slightly surprised that nobody has yet pointed out that James Joyce wrote "Finnegans Wake", not "Finnegan's Wake". Gell-Mann gets it right.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-81239256825142889052011-02-11T01:39:10.236+00:002011-02-11T01:39:10.236+00:00As a particle physicist in training (Estuary Engli...As a particle physicist in training (Estuary English, British, by background) I usually rhyme quark with park. Most native-English physicists that I know pronounce it that way too. <br /><br />Whenever I've heard a Teilchenphysiker say the word quark, they have usually pronounced it to rhyme with park. However, two caveats: one, this was when they were speaking in English; and two, some physicists whose English was not quite so excellent might rhyme it with pork, depending where they are from in the German-speaking world.<br /><br />Another issue is code-switching, or something like it. I've heard conversations in, for example, Greek, where technical or computing terms were pronounced in English. That is, even if the word existed in Greek and English with the same spelling and meaning (allowing for transliteration), they would use their closest approximation to a standard English pronunciation. But this would even extend to non-technical words that were semantically linked to technical terms. For example, the phrase "second jet" has a technical meaning, and would be pronounced just as it is, instead of using the Greek for second and the English term-of-art jet.<br /><br />What's a little confusing for me is that speakers of, say, German, frequently use the English technical terms in this way, even though the technical terms exist already or can be easily constructed in those languages (as opposed to, say, Lithuanian or Hindi, where they would have to borrowed).<br /><br />If you'd like to research this, do please come to CERN. There's a captive population of speakers of many European and other languages, and each approaching English or French in their own way. It's fascinating (especially when their non-grammatical usages of things like "since" can rub off on native English speakers!)Michaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07346069517850565739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-68368191860037809302011-02-10T21:44:33.740+00:002011-02-10T21:44:33.740+00:00In my dialect, /kwɑːɹk/ is unnatural for a few rea...In my dialect, /kwɑːɹk/ is unnatural for a few reasons. One is that /ɑ/ here in the Canadian prairies has merged with /a/. Another is perhaps the complexity of the syllable. When I consider the concomittant r-rounding combined with the /w/ in the onset, it's no wonder that a mostly locally obsolete vowel like /ɑ/ should shift to the closest phoneme /ɔ/ while assimilating the whole sequence with labialization at the same time. The path of least resistance, it seems.<br /><br />Thanks for causing me to dwell on this interesting word. Apparently quarks have more than just six flavours afterall.Glen Gordonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02440249042894225949noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-37052541923016853042011-02-10T19:23:42.151+00:002011-02-10T19:23:42.151+00:00Which onomatopoetic word do 'les frogs' us...Which onomatopoetic word do 'les frogs' use for the sound of a frog?Krauthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11932831673529849848noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-91012619427539291142011-02-10T14:26:09.336+00:002011-02-10T14:26:09.336+00:00Again: fascinating. Never noticed that.
I'd l...Again: fascinating. Never noticed that.<br /><br />I'd like to trick Kraut or other native speakers into recording a conversation and then see if there's really a difference between:<br /><br /><i>nah</i> = <b>naː</b><br /><i>Narr</i> = <b>naɐ̯</b> and<br /><i>nahr(haft)</i> = <b>naːɐ̯</b><br /><br /><i>na</i> = <b>na</b> and bisyllabic<br /><i>naher</i> = <b>naːɐ</b> should be different anyway.Phillip Mindenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16801818752833289089noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-30808717064623594932011-02-10T13:54:11.873+00:002011-02-10T13:54:11.873+00:00Duden, p. 54, gives
Wetzlar [ˈvɛt͜slar]/[ˈvɛt͜...Duden, p. 54, gives <br /><br /> Wetzlar [ˈvɛt͜slar]/[ˈvɛt͜slaɐ̯]<br /><br />as an example of <b>aɐ̯</b> for <b>ar</b>.Steve Doerrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11410868047916610730noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-25415376017376195772011-02-10T12:10:42.217+00:002011-02-10T12:10:42.217+00:00I hear kaːl, same as kahl, and it's not even i...I hear <b>kaːl</b>, same as <i>kahl</i>, and it's not even in a natural speech environment.Phillip Mindenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16801818752833289089noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-6684602705024029382011-02-10T12:06:23.238+00:002011-02-10T12:06:23.238+00:00Lipman: no, it doesn't say aɐ, it says ar. aɐ...Lipman: no, it doesn't say <b>aɐ</b>, it says <b>ar</b>. <b>aɐ</b> is just what I would expect by analogy with other <b>Vɐ</b>, for example <b>mɔɐgn</b> for <i>morgen</i>.<br /><br />For the long variant (orthographic <i>ahr</i> or <i>aar</i>), Collins gives <b>a:ɐ</b> - not just prevocalically, but also for <i>Fahrt</i> etc.<br /><br />But maybe you are right, and non-rhotic Germans don't distinguish between <i>ar</i>, <i>ahr</i> and <i>ah</i> in practice. I'll be listening out for it now.<br /><br />Could someone with a better ear than me listen to <a href="http://www.nordicnames.de/Aussprache.html" rel="nofollow">this site</a>, and detect any <b>aɐ</b> in names such as Carl?Leohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04023787332836734901noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-39051652305298900002011-02-10T11:47:46.945+00:002011-02-10T11:47:46.945+00:00Only kwaxk(ɵ), far's I know, but I'm sure ...Only <b>kwaxk(ɵ)</b>, far's I know, but I'm sure they have a word of their own for it.Phillip Mindenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16801818752833289089noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-10172538421117162642011-02-10T11:43:00.478+00:002011-02-10T11:43:00.478+00:00So much for Krauts and their pronunciations of qua...So much for Krauts and their pronunciations of quak, Quark and Quark. What about 'le Frogs'? ;)Krauthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11932831673529849848noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-53551706138116843252011-02-10T11:20:40.361+00:002011-02-10T11:20:40.361+00:00My bilingual dictionary gives /kwA:k/ as the only ...My bilingual dictionary gives /kwA:k/ as the <em>only</em> English pronunciation and /kwark/ as the <em>only</em> Italian pronunciation. Obviously not written by physicists. :-)army1987noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-44037236865687167242011-02-10T11:18:49.154+00:002011-02-10T11:18:49.154+00:00It transcribes orthographic ar as ar (which in pra...<i>It transcribes orthographic </i>ar<i> as <b>ar</b> (which in practice tends to be aɐ, as Kraut says). </i><br /><br />Never mind the transcription with ar, which takes account of rhotic and non-rhotic accents, but does your dictionary actually say [aɐ]?<br /><br />I know [a(ː)ɐ] only in "careful speech" for words like <i>naher</i>, not in <i>Bart</i> or <i>Fahrt</i>. Also, I can't imagine a speaker of StG makes a difference between the vowels of those two last words.Phillip Mindenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16801818752833289089noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-48594502988351365612011-02-10T11:03:48.018+00:002011-02-10T11:03:48.018+00:00Lipman: My dictionary (Collins) agrees with Kraut....Lipman: My dictionary (Collins) agrees with Kraut. It transcribes orthographic <i>ar</i> as <b>ar</b> (which in practice tends to be <b>aɐ</b>, as Kraut says). <i>Arm</i>, for example, is <b>arm</b>. The long <b>aːɐ</b> corresponds to the spelling <i>ahr</i>, e.g. <i>Fahrt</i>.<br /><br />I thought the stereotype about Swabian accents was they they realised the <b>/r/</b> as an actual consonant after short vowels, rather than as <b>[ɐ]</b>. But the fact that they make the distinction between <i>ar</i> and <i>ah</i> at all (e.g. <i>Narr</i> vs <i>nah</i>) is not unusual - Standard German is supposed to make it too.<br /><br />Conversely, I have been told that the realisation of <i>ar</i> as monophthongal <b>[aː]</b> - which you say is normal - is actually a feature of a strong Ruhr accent. Can anyone comment on that?<br /><br />Interestingly, Collins actually does give <i>Quark</i> in the scientific sense as <b>kvaːk</b>, thus distinguishing it from the cheese - but surely that is orthographically exceptional. <i>Park</i> is given as <b>park</b>, for instance.Leohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04023787332836734901noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-55916946683216496342011-02-10T09:43:31.352+00:002011-02-10T09:43:31.352+00:00Never heard that for [a], as opposed to the other ...Never heard that for [a], as opposed to the other vowels. What I hear, in Standard German and the majority of the dialects, ie in the non-rhotic forms of German, is [aː].<br /><br />Do you distinguish between [aɐ] and [aːɐ]?Phillip Mindenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16801818752833289089noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-14094399551767385642011-02-10T09:38:29.631+00:002011-02-10T09:38:29.631+00:00How 'bout "joule"? Do you guys say d...How 'bout "joule"? Do you guys say dZaUl or dZU:l?army1987noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-66752941487590238292011-02-10T07:30:11.249+00:002011-02-10T07:30:11.249+00:00Lipman:
I did not spend my speech-forming years in...Lipman:<br />I did not spend my speech-forming years in the Swabian area. My pronunciation of <quak> corresponds to what <DUDEN Aussprachewörterbuch> says. Replacing the /r/ by /ɐ/ in the two other words is frequently done in colloquial German.Krauthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11932831673529849848noreply@blogger.com