Summary Details
| Query: |
k/t alternation summary
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| Author: | Kirk Hazen | |
| Submitter Email: | click here to access email | |
| Linguistic LingField(s): |
Phonology
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| Summary: |
Dear Linguists, Here is a summary of my question about k/t alternations (LINGUIST 10.229). I received a lot of wonderful tips and I want to thank all of the respondents. The ones I have cited are below. The others are Crawford Feagin, Mike Maxwell, James L. Fidelholtz, Bob Hoberman, and Robert Orr. I apologized if I have forgotten anyone. Kirk Hazen khazen2@wvu.edu Jerry Neufeld-Kaiser My father in law, native to central Missouri, pronounces "disk" and "ask" with a word-final [t]. Bruce H. Spencer I've noticed it particularly in the words Sprite -> Sprike and K-mart -> K-mark. I've also heard Wal-mark/K-mark. Tobias Scheer I have been working a lot on the following alternation occurring in Cologne German, i.e. the variety of German spoken in the city of Cologne/Germany. (S=sch, E=schwa, N=velar nasal) standard German Cologne Germ. Zeit [tsajt] Zick [tsik] "time" Leute [lojtE] Lck [lyk] "people" schneiden [SnajdEn] schigge [SnigE] "cut" braun [brawn] brung [bruN] "brown" binden [bindEn] binge [biNE] "bind" bunt [bunt] bungk [buNk] "colourful" Obviously, we are facing a velarisation, i.e. [t,d,n,nd,nt] --> [k,g,N,Ng,Nk] (underlying /Ng/ is always [N] in Cologne, as it is in st. German). The contextual conditions are weird: Middle-High German dentals become velars iff preceded by a MHG high vowel, i.e. [i,u,y]. Cf. for example st. German 'Bein' "leg" = Cologne 'Bein' without velarisation because it comes from MHG 'bein', against MHG 'ziit, lyyt, sniidEn, bruun, bindEn, bunt' "time, people etc." There is no reverse process as in your examples, i.e. k-->t. Christian L. Duetschmann I know for sure of an alternation there whereby a [t] of standard German and the rest of the dialects, or whatever dental corresponds to it in other Germanic (standard) languages, goes to [k]. Thus in that variety, heute (today) is [hYk]; Hund (dog) is [honk] (properly some open(?) o and a velar nasal preceding the k); Zeit (time) is [tsik] (short open i, rhyming with StE sick]; Leute (people) is [lYk] (Y, a short high rounded front vowel; >velar(!) l as in most varieties of AE). Inflected forms of words subject to the change retain a velar, thus Hunde (dogs) is [honge] <h; open o; velar nasal (no stop g); schwa>. Moreover,by analogy with such instances or independently, some (or a definable subset of(?)) plain 'n' nasals have been replaced by velar ones, e.g. [ding(e)], homophonous with StG Ding(e) "thing(s)", <d; short open i; velar nasal(; schwa)> = standard "dein(e)" ("your(s)" possessor 2sg., possessed masc./ntr. (fem.sg. or all genders pl.), nom.acc.) . Miriam Meyerhoff The chiefly speech in Samoan ('upu fa'aaloalo) requires use of certain lexical items and also pronunciation changes Low /t/ -> High /k/ (I think it's that direction). I can't find the handout I thought I had with examples of this, or I'd send it to you, but you could try Finegan's Intro to Lg, I think there's some references in there. And the monster grammar by Ulrike Mosel & Hovdhaugen(?) will I'm sure have an account of it. Hawaiian also gives an example of this shift diachronically. Where the other Eastern Polynesian languages, e.g. Maori, have /t/ Hawaiian has /k/ (and then the Proto-Eastern /k/ went to /?/ in Hawaiian which is why it looks so weird today and has such a typologically marked stop inventory (no /t/). So Maori /tane/ 'man' = Hawaiian /kane/; M /te/ 'definite determiner' = H /ka/. Someone like Sam Elbert or Peter Buck or Robert Blust will surely have written something on this (I'll be surprised if Blust doesn't reply to you himself). Robert Trammell I remember my children at ages 9 and 6 one summer with others their age were using the term skreet for street. I had heard of it in Black English and had heard some of my college-age African American Students tell me that they were majoring in Business and Adminiskration. While I was at first amazed that this child speech trait had carried over into college age speech, when I thought about, the k, p, and t are very similar acoustically, because articulatorily they create mirror image speech tracts, that is, a V shape starting at the lips, aveolar ridge, or dorsum. People around them may have heard what they wanted to hear, so they were never corrected by their friends and family. David Barnwell I've heard traces of it in the white working-class of Piuttsburgh PA. In fact it's common to hear them say they're from Piksburgh. Megan Melancon Among the French groups (Louisiana)(the Cajuns and the Creoles), the /sk/ alternates more often with an /x/...'Ax him what time it is' is extremely common. |
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| LL Issue: | 10.316 | |
| Date Posted: | 26-Feb-1999 | |
| Original Query: | Read original query | |
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