Newsgroups: sci.lang
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!udel!news.sprintlink.net!in1.uu.net!eskimo!rickw
From: rickw@eskimo.com (Richard Wojcik)
Subject: Re: Acquisition of phonemes thfough foreign influences
X-Nntp-Posting-Host: eskimo.com
Message-ID: <DFsDtF.Fq5@eskimo.com>
Sender: news@eskimo.com (News User Id)
Organization: Eskimo North (206) For-Ever
References: <43viv3$l6g@medici.trl.oz.au> <446p1a$56m@agate.berkeley.edu> <ludemannDFKMLu.G0A@netcom.com> <44edjp$n5k@bone.think.com>
Date: Sun, 1 Oct 1995 20:20:03 GMT
Lines: 48

In article <44edjp$n5k@bone.think.com>, Daan Sandee <sandee@think.com> wrote:
>ludemann@netcom.com (Peter Ludemann) writes:
 [snip]
>>Languages have rules about where phonemes can appear in words (not
>>just in syllables) ... one good example is the "vowel harmony" in
>>Altaic langauges (I suspect that English has its own positioning and
>>stress combination rules).

There are different types of "rules", and vowel harmony is not really the
same type of constraint that the English constraint against initial [ts]
clusters is.  For one thing, vowel harmony does not really constrain
articulation.  Turks learning English aren't usually compelled to apply
vowel harmony to English words.  On the other hand, English speakers
learning Russian find initial [ts] difficult to pronounce.

>That's all very well, but why has English that particular problem with
>initial consonant clusters ? Greek words with ps-, pn-, or x-, and
>Slavic words with ts- pose no difficulties to the French, the Germans,
>or the Dutch, and yet those sounds do not occur in their native languages
>(with the exception of ts- in German.) Did the English, once they lost
>the k in kn-, decide to refuse to pronounce all initial double consonants ?
>Why is kn- more difficult that kl-, anyway ? or pn- than pl-?

You sound a bit impatient with English speakers who can't pronounce those
initial clusters.  As if they were just being lazy.  :-)  The fact is that
most of the world's languages do not tolerate such initial clusters.  Even
though English tends to side with most other languages on this issue,
English speakers are still more tolerant of consonant clusters than
speakers of most other languages.

It is probably better to think of languages with consonant clusters as
forcing their speakers to learn to pronounce them.  That is, all clusters
are intrinsically difficult to pronounce.  English speakers can't pronounce
initial [ts] because their language never made them learn to do it.

I know the next question.  Why don't all languages simply lose their
consonant clusters and never develop them in the first place?  The answer
is that there are other phonological constraints that do things like remove
vowels between consonants in fast or casual speech.  That causes children
learning those languages to sometimes posit clusters rather than lost
vowels in adult speech.  Hence, consonant clusters come and go over time.
There is no logical reason for a language to have certain phonological
patterns.  Children just learn to pronounce the phonological hand that fate
deals them.

-- 
Rick Wojcik  rickw@eskimo.com     Seattle (for locals: Bellevue), WA
             http://www.eskimo.com/~rickw/
