From: rcj@engin.umich.edu (R o d Johnson)
Subject: Re: phonology question
Date: Fri, 04 Sep 92 20:03:45 EDT
Organization: Lost Tribes of Gazebo

In article <1992Sep4.162919.3213@memstvx1.memst.edu> connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu writes:
>In article <W5[Am-XD-@engin.umich.edu>, rcj@engin.umich.edu (R o d Johnson) writes:
>> In article <1992Sep4.120207.3208@memstvx1.memst.edu> connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu writes:
>>>In article <1992Sep4.032626.8708@midway.uchicago.edu>, goer@ellis.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz) writes:

>>>> Why does it seem awkward for an English-speaker to say "ibpag"?

>>>[ibpag] violates a constraint in English that adjacent stops within
>>>a word must agree in voicing. 

[I supplied counterexamples]

>Sure I could say "subpolar", though I doubt it would contain [bp] with
>voiced [b] (try a voiceless lenis for size).  

Well, "voiceless lenis" seems like a pretty impressionistic construct
to me.  In my pronunciation of these, the voiced stops are voiced;
perhaps the voicing is briefer, perhaps not.  Short of a real
instrumental study, and some notion of how fortis and lenis operate in
English phonology in your view, I don't know what to say about it.  It
seems to me you've simply replaced voicing with strength as the
feature that distinguishes between b and p here; if that difference
sounds like voicing to a naive listener, I'd say it's in essence
voicing (since we don't have access to a phonetics lab when we're
learning to speak a language).

>But I digress.  Most of
>your examples are totally irrelevant because they are compounds formed
>within English, 

As I pointed out.)

>and the voicing adjustment rule simply does not apply
>to such compounds, most of which, by the way, are written with a word
>space between the elements.  With or without a space, intraword
>phonetic rules do not apply to such cases, which is why the second
>p in _pisspot_ is aspirated, while the p in _spot_ is not (no aspira-
>tion after /s/ within the word).

Leo, you're changing your claim.  You claimed that there is

>>>a constraint in English that adjacent stops within
>>>a word must agree in voicing. 

I gave you counterexamples.  Regardless of how these things are
written (and I can't accept typographical conventions as a very
reliable type of phonological evidence), at least some of them are
pretty indisputably words of English ("tadpole", "midpoint",
"hardtack", "woodcock", "redcoat", "broadcast", and several others).
Now you're proposing a different, perhaps better, analysis (though, as
above, it's pretty ad hoc at this point).  My examples aren't
irrelevant at all; they're precise counterexamples to your original
claim, causing you to present a more refined claim.  Science marches
on.

>The -bt- group is a different situation: your examples are all of
>Latin derivation.  

Again, as I pointed out.

>Without exception I do apply the voicing adjust-
>ment rule to these, pronouncing the /b/ (if such it be) as a voiceless
>lenis.

So you claim that you pronounce the /b/s differently in "obtain" and
"bobcat" (in ways not predictable from other aspects of the
phonological context)?  Maybe, maybe not.  This is a pretty subtle
thing to trust your ear on.  I certainly don't hear it in mine.
Anyone? 

It seems to me you've proposed an ad hoc account based on some pretty
tenuous evidence.  That said, you may very well be correct, but you'll
need some stronger arguments to convince me.

-- 
       Rod Johnson  *  rcj@caen.engin.umich.edu  *  (313) 764-3103
    
                "What I do doesn't happen in a warehouse"
                                          --Jim Dickinson
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