LINGUIST List 3.68

Fri 24 Jan 1992

Disc: Clusters

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. Richard Sproat, 3.61 Clusters
2. Jacques Guy, Clusters
3. Roland Noske, RE: 3.61 Clusters
4. AVERY D ANDREWS, Clusters in Hiberno-English

> Date: Mon, 20 Jan 92 9:37:11 EST
> From: bert peeters <peeterstasman.cc.utas.edu.au>
> Subject: 3.41 Clusters

> The same feature exists in various dialects of Dutch, where the cluster
> involved consists of /l/ or /r/ followed by /m/ or /k/.
>

An epenthetic vowel between /l/ or /r/ is also very common in many
dialects of both Irish and Scots Gaelic, and may perhaps be the source
of the Hiberno-English phenomenon.

It just occurred to me: when I was learning Gaelic years ago from cassettes, I
 noticed
that the tutor pronounced "arm" as "arrem", which I understood as influenced
 from
Gaelic. Indeed, in Scottish Gaelic, post-tonic consonant clusters with a liquid
 as
first member are broken up. E.g. garbh, dearg, Alba, all pronounced by an
 epenthetic
shwa, as if they were written garabh, dearag, Alaba. On this matter you also
 observe
an effective lengthening of certain clusters, thus "ort" pronounced "orst". The
 reason
in that particular case is that, in Scottish Gaelic, final t, p, and c are
 pre-aspirated,
thus "mac" is [maxk]. [orst], I surmise, came from [orht] itself from [ort].

Message 3: RE: 3.61 Clusters

The process of breaking up clusters in Dutch is much wider than Bert Peeters
mentions. In my variety of Dutch (= Standard Dutch of the Netherlands;
in Flanders things may be different) a schwa may be inserted not only between
l,r and m,k but also between a liquid and ANY tautosyllabic non-coronal ob-
struent (including fricatives) (as well as m). Examples:
 erg [Erx] (E = open e) 'bad, very'
 elf [Elf] 'eleven'
 help [hElp] 'help'
In certain dialects the restriction of tautosyllabicity has been lifted, e.g.,
in certain dialects of the southern Netherlands (in the present political
sense):
e.g., varken [varkn] 'pig'
 Bijlmer [bEilmr] (quarter of Amsterdam)

Roland Noske, Amsterdam

The film -> fillum cluster break-up in Hiberno Irish is part of
Irish phonology that seems to have been borrowed into English.
(M. O' Siadhail's recent CUP book on Irish would be a good source).

 Avery.Andrewsanu.edu.au