Re: THEORY: language and the brain [Interesting article]

Mark J. Reed sikyal:

> On Wed, Jul 02, 2003 at 11:34:58AM +0200, Christophe Grandsire wrote:
> > Not to me. The Japanese r is just an alveolar flap (and the Japanese people
> > I've met agree with me) which is no different from the Spanish single 'r'
> > between two vowels. Since they don't have a l, they replace it with the
> > alveolar flap (the closest thing to an alveolar lateral they have), but
> > that doesn't make it any l-like. And I listen daily to enough Japanese
> > (between songs and anime) to have quite an informed opinion on that.
>
> Huh.  Based on such descriptions as "halfway between l and r",
> I'd just assumed that [l] was an allophonic or dialectical variant
> of Japanese /4/; I haven't heard enough Japanese for it to be suspicious
> that I hadn't heard [l] firsthand.  But I guess it's just another case
> of non-phoneticists getting their "explanation" wrong. :)
I don't think it's completely wrong. My understanding is that the Japanese
/r/ is a *lateralized* alveolar flap, meaning that the flap only occurs on
one side of the mouth. Thus, there is something [l]-like about it, which
English speakers pick up on. For some reason, palatalization magnifies
this tendency, so /rj/ sounds a lot like [lj] to me.

> Speaking of Japanese phonology - I originally thought, based on the book
> I was using, that /u/ was, in fact, pronounced [u].  But then upon
> listening to some Japanese speech, I decided it was [y] instead.  Now,
> after listening to much more Japanese, I have decided it's actually
> [M].   Am I right yet?   Are two or more of the above allophonic
> variants?
[M] is correct. ObLanguageTeaching: Even the advanced Japanese speakers
I've met don't seem to be aware of this, and still pronounce the /u/ as
[u]. Does no one correct them? Treacherous, that . . .


Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/blog

Jesus asked them, "Who do you say that I am?"

And they answered, "You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground
of our being, the kerygma in which we find the ultimate meaning of our
interpersonal relationship."

And Jesus said, "What?"