LINGUIST List 11.207

Wed Feb 2 2000

Qs: Phonetics & Pop Culture, Turkish Causative

Editor for this issue: Karen Milligan <karenlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Mai Kuha, Speaking without teeth
2. Corinna Anderson, Turkish causative

I have a cartoon that shows a man at a cinema holding in his hand his
false teeth, which are stuck together with candy. He is saying to a
companion: "Yesh, yesh, sho jujubeesh were a loushy choish."

I'm wondering whether I can have my intro to linguistics students discuss
the cartoonist's assumptions about how consonants are articulated. They
can probably notice that the interdental fricative in "the" is correctly
portrayed as being problematic, and question why alveolar fricatives are
rendered as palatals. If the effect of teeth on speech sounds is much more
complex than this, though, maybe I shouldn't bring this up in class. Could
anyone enlighten me?

I would also be interested in hearing about other portrayals of
articulatory phonetics in pop culture that could be critiqued by beginning
students. For instance, Bill Cosby has a routine about excessive
anesthesia at a visit to the dentist, in which he complains (I think) "My
libidib is in my labadap". It might be instructive and fun to consider
whether numbness could really have this effect on bilabials.

Thanks in advance.

-Mai
_____________________________________________
Mai Kuha mkuhabsuvc.bsu.edu
Department of English (765) 285-8410
Ball State University

i am looking for analyses of the causative construction in turkish for
comparison in research involving argument structure in morphological 
and semantic causatives. i have been so far unable to track down any
concrete relevant sources, but have data and descriptive work. i am
particularly interested in recent syntactic or morphological approaches
to the common patterns (and deviations), and also any analysis in
connection to specific verb classes and other non-structural factors. 
Any information will be appreciated.

cma