Re: Emphasis allophonies?

Carlos Thompson <carlos_thompson@...> wrote:

> One of the features of Hangkerimce is the existence of many allophonies,
> many of them are caused by sourronding sounds and accentuation, but also
> there are allophonies caused by the emphasis a morpheme has in the speech.
>
> Are there any natural language that has this kind of allophony present?
I think we could say Rioplatense has that 'emphasis allophony'
regarding syllable-final /s/. It's normally pronounced [h] or
dropped, but it becomes a proper and sharp [s] when emphasis
is needed. Nice example:

        Nos fuimos.     [noh'fwimoh]    'We went.'
        No fuimos.      [no 'fuimoh]    'We didn't go.'

In a particular tone, those two are virtually indistinguishable!


--Pablo Flores