On Nov 4, 12:48 am, wdst...@panix.com (William December Starr) wrote:
> In article <b32efa6c-0668-4fcd-807c-be42bad78...@b2g2000yqi.googlegroups.com>, > Butch Malahide <fred.gal...@gmail.com> said: > > Try "bath" and "bathe". Stretch out the final consonant.
> Yes, the "th" sounds in those two words are different to me. I > never meant to claim that 'th' can't have different pronunciations > in different words in English, just that I don't/can't perceive a > difference in the their/thing example that Jacey gave. Or at least, > that when both 'th's are pronounced the same, it sounds perfectly > normal to me.
Does the th in their/thing sound like the th in bath or the th in bathe?
On Nov 4, 12:48 am, wdst...@panix.com (William December Starr) wrote:
> In article <b32efa6c-0668-4fcd-807c-be42bad78...@b2g2000yqi.googlegroups.com>, > Butch Malahide <fred.gal...@gmail.com> said: > > Try "bath" and "bathe". Stretch out the final consonant.
> Yes, the "th" sounds in those two words are different to me. I > never meant to claim that 'th' can't have different pronunciations > in different words in English, just that I don't/can't perceive a > difference in the their/thing example that Jacey gave. Or at least, > that when both 'th's are pronounced the same, it sounds perfectly > normal to me.
Do you perceive a difference between "who's there?" and "who's Thayer?"?
: Rebecca Rice <rebecca_r...@att.net> : This may be where the problem lies... I can't really grasp the : difference between how a voiced and unvoiced th sound. So when you : say "try saying "thing" with a voiced th", I can't even comprehend : what it should sound like, much less that it should sound strange.
Well... consider the words "thee" and "three". Say them a couple of times repeated: thee-thee-thee, three-three-three. Now, start to say one of them, and stop before you get to the second phoneme, drawing out the first phoneme. You should (or perhaps better, "it may be that you would") feel the difference between starting to say "the" and holding the initial sound, and starting to say "three" and holding the initial sound. That difference (if you note it) is "voicing". It's the same as the difference between "p" and "b". You can also say "p-p-p" and "b-b-b". Basically, you're relaxing some muscles in your neck that pull the vocal chords out of the way of the airflow to "voice" (or, cause your larnyx to buzz) the th-in-thee and the b, but not the th-in-three, or the p.
You can also note that the tongue and lip positions of th-in-the and th-in-three are the same, and likewise the tongue and lip positions in p and b are the same. The only difference is the mysterious "voicing".
At this point, I am inspired to call "yasid" on the story about the martian bartender who couldn't tell how he mixed a drink, and whenever he slowed down to try to watch himself to see how much of each ingredient he added, it came out horrid. Finally had to resort to high-speed cameras. This was in aid of creating a robot to do the mixing.
: The Adam's apple trick has shown me that they _feel_ different, but : that doesn't translate to sounding different.
Oh, well, how they *sound*. Hm. Well, go to wictionary, and click on the audio demos for the words "thee" and "three". Listen to one a few repeats, then switch to the other. You should note that one of the words "buzzes" at the very start, and one does not; it sort of hisses instead.
: (And is probably being made more difficult because the ng in thing : makes the same sort of buzzy feel as the th in they, so the words as a : whole have the same sort of feel to them.)
Try "thee" and "three", then. But note that in *all* the examples, thing, their, they and even the and theme, the vowels are voiced, so they will all have a buzz to them somewhere in the pronunciation.
However... what do you think, is the th-in-theme voiced, or unvoiced?
Or... try "thy" and "thigh", as somebody pointed out elsethread.
Eh, never know. It might help. Or maybe not, never can tell.
: wdst...@panix.com (William December Starr) : I was addressing the way the sounds are spoken in normal speech, not : the way they're pronounced when artificially drawn out or spoken : unnaturally slowly.
Ah. So you *would* say that "d" and "t" are the same sound, since after all, one can come up with examples where they are nigh-indistinguishable in "normal speech". I admit, that's a novel way of looking at it.
In any event, even in "ballistic speech", the two aren't the same. Try voiceprints; I'm pretty sure the distinction is there.
: wdst...@panix.com (William December Starr) : Or at least, : that when both 'th's are pronounced the same, it sounds perfectly : normal to me.
I suspect you aren't actually pronouncing them the same. I expect I could be convinced otherwise by voiceprinting. The lip, tooth and tongue positions are identical, but I expect a slightly different timing of the onset of voicing, ie, the muscles in the larnyx aren't coordinated in the same way in the two sounds. But of course, that can be hard to introspect. Hence: voiceprinting.
> Mike Schilling wrote: > > Joe Pfeiffer wrote: > >> thro...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop) writes:
> >>>> Quadibloc <jsav...@ecn.ab.ca> > >>>> Most English speakers do not notice the distinction between voiced > >>>> and unvoiced "th", so both are a single phoneme in that language, > >>>> even though the distinction is significant in some other languages.
> >>> The teachers when/where I want to elementary and high school > >>> were not aware of this, and taught whole classesfull of students > >>> that there are two distinct sounds that are spelled "th". > >>> Well... three if you count my name.
> >>> All these students are out there running around spreading this > >>> misinformation. Why, these people go around supposing that the > >>> "th" sounds in "the thumb" "those three" are distinct. > >>> Enough to make one weep, it is.
> >> Turns out they are different phones as they sound different, but the > >> same phoneme since if you substitute them they sound funny but have > >> the same meaning.
> > There are acutally minimal pairs for the two:
> (Hit "send" too soon)
> Example "thigh" and "thy".
Or "teeth" and "teethe".
However--speaking as an ignorant hick who never studied linguistics--I have trouble seeing the significance of those pairs. I don't think you can make that thigh/thy or teeth/teethe substitution work to change the meaning of a *sentence* or any kind of meaningful utterance; as far as I can see, it only works at the *word* level. Now linguistics is supposed to be the study of speech, not writing; but it is not clear to this ignoramus how you would define "words" in spoken language. No doubt they have some way of doing it, and it's covered in that linguistics course I didn't take. At any rate, the status of "thy" as a word would be rather dubious if English were not a written language; there would be no way of telling if the "thy" in "thy will" is a separate word or just a prefix. Translated into Hungarian, it becomes a suffix: "will" (noun) = "akarat", "thy" = "-od", "thy will" = "akaratod"; or to emphasize the possessor, "*thy* will" = "te akaratod" where "te" = "thee".
On Nov 4, 3:14 am, thro...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop) wrote:
> At this point, I am inspired to call "yasid" on the story about the > martian bartender who couldn't tell how he mixed a drink, and whenever > he slowed down to try to watch himself to see how much of each ingredient > he added, it came out horrid. Finally had to resort to high-speed cameras. > This was in aid of creating a robot to do the mixing.
"Yes. I got one of those new electronic cameras--you know, one thousand exposures per second. Hard to find at that time of night, but we made it."
"We?"
"You helped me. You kept the man from overcharging me. Or maybe you don't remember that? So we took pictures of Guzub making a Three Planets, and I could construct this one to do it exactly right down to the thousandth of a second. The proper proportion of vuzd, in case you're interested, works out to three-point-six-five-four-seven-eight- two-three drops. It's done with a flip of the third joint of the tentacle on the down beat. It didn't seem right to use Guzub to make a robot that would compete with him and probably drive him out of business, so we've promised him a generous pension from the royalties on usuform barkeeps."
Butch Malahide wrote: > On Nov 4, 12:48 am, wdst...@panix.com (William December Starr) wrote: >> In article <b32efa6c-0668-4fcd-807c-be42bad78...@b2g2000yqi.googlegroups.com>, >> Butch Malahide <fred.gal...@gmail.com> said: >>> Try "bath" and "bathe". Stretch out the final consonant. >> Yes, the "th" sounds in those two words are different to me. I >> never meant to claim that 'th' can't have different pronunciations >> in different words in English, just that I don't/can't perceive a >> difference in the their/thing example that Jacey gave. Or at least, >> that when both 'th's are pronounced the same, it sounds perfectly >> normal to me.
> Do you perceive a difference between "who's there?" and "who's > Thayer?"?
That'd depend on what accent I was talking in, for me. In some Southern accents, both would be the same.
On Nov 4, 3:45 am, Butch Malahide <fred.gal...@gmail.com> wrote:
> "Yes. I got one of those new electronic cameras--you know, one > thousand exposures per second. Hard to find at that time of night, but > we made it."
And, of course, this illustrates how hard it is for science-fiction to keep ahead of reality in some areas, since Casio now has more than one camera in their Exilim line-up that can shoot video at 1000 fps.
thro...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop) writes: > : wdst...@panix.com (William December Starr) > : I was addressing the way the sounds are spoken in normal speech, not > : the way they're pronounced when artificially drawn out or spoken > : unnaturally slowly.
> Ah. So you *would* say that "d" and "t" are the same sound, since after > all, one can come up with examples where they are nigh-indistinguishable > in "normal speech". I admit, that's a novel way of looking at it.
> In any event, even in "ballistic speech", the two aren't the same. > Try voiceprints; I'm pretty sure the distinction is there.
Though this is one that varies a lot with dialect and word -- many people pronounce "patter" as "padder". -- As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously. (Benjamin Franklin)
Butch Malahide wrote: > On Nov 3, 4:40 pm, "Mike Schilling" <mscottschill...@hotmail.com> > wrote: >> Mike Schilling wrote: >>> Joe Pfeiffer wrote: >>>> thro...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop) writes:
>>>>>> Quadibloc <jsav...@ecn.ab.ca> >>>>>> Most English speakers do not notice the distinction between >>>>>> voiced and unvoiced "th", so both are a single phoneme in that >>>>>> language, even though the distinction is significant in some >>>>>> other languages.
>>>>> The teachers when/where I want to elementary and high school >>>>> were not aware of this, and taught whole classesfull of students >>>>> that there are two distinct sounds that are spelled "th". >>>>> Well... three if you count my name.
>>>>> All these students are out there running around spreading this >>>>> misinformation. Why, these people go around supposing that the >>>>> "th" sounds in "the thumb" "those three" are distinct. >>>>> Enough to make one weep, it is.
>>>> Turns out they are different phones as they sound different, but >>>> the same phoneme since if you substitute them they sound funny >>>> but >>>> have the same meaning.
>>> There are acutally minimal pairs for the two:
>> (Hit "send" too soon)
>> Example "thigh" and "thy".
> Or "teeth" and "teethe".
> However--speaking as an ignorant hick who never studied > linguistics--I > have trouble seeing the significance of those pairs.
It's the standard way of showing that two phones are different phonemes: finding (at least) one pair of words that differ only by substituting one for the other. Hence "minimal pair". (Linguists being what they are, "minimal pair" is also used to describe a flat-chested woman.)
> I don't think you > can make that thigh/thy or teeth/teethe substitution work to change > the meaning of a *sentence* or any kind of meaningful utterance; as > far as I can see, it only works at the *word* level. Now linguistics > is supposed to be the study of speech, not writing; but it is not > clear to this ignoramus how you would define "words" in spoken > language. No doubt they have some way of doing it, and it's covered > in > that linguistics course I didn't take. At any rate, the status of > "thy" as a word would be rather dubious if English were not a > written > language; there would be no way of telling if the "thy" in "thy > will" > is a separate word or just a prefix.
If "thy" were a prefix, by analogy so would be "my", "his", "John's", "the dog's", "my oldest sister's", etc. Clearly, as the modifiers get longer, this breaks down.
Quadibloc <jsav...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote: > On Nov 4, 3:45B am, Butch Malahide <fred.gal...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> "Yes. I got one of those new electronic cameras--you know, one >> thousand exposures per second. Hard to find at that time of night, but >> we made it."
> And, of course, this illustrates how hard it is for science-fiction to > keep ahead of reality in some areas, since Casio now has more than one > camera in their Exilim line-up that can shoot video at 1000 fps.
By my standards, this is not such an illustration - "Q.U.R." was published in 1943.
In article <hcr7hh$fs...@panix2.panix.com>, William December Starr <wdst...@panix.com> wrote:
>In article <KsJ267.1...@kithrup.com>, >goldf...@ocf.berkeley.edu (David Goldfarb) said: >> and have never studied linguistics.
>Does one need to have studied linguistics to determine whether parts >of two words sound the same?
You failed to recognize the difference in sound for parts of two words that do in fact sound different, and you have never studied linguistics. So you tell me.
(If you're going to continue to assert that the th in "thy" is the same as the th in "thigh", I will simply start laughing.)
-- David Goldfarb |"It's okay to disagree with me. However, once I goldf...@ocf.berkeley.edu |explain where you're wrong you're supposed to goldf...@csua.berkeley.edu |become enlightened and change your mind. |Congratulating me on how smart I am is optional." | -- Karl Johanson
On Nov 4, 4:15 pm, na...@math.ohio-state.edu (Anthony Nance) wrote:
> Quadibloc <jsav...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote: > > On Nov 4, 3:45B am, Butch Malahide <fred.gal...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> "Yes. I got one of those new electronic cameras--you know, one > >> thousand exposures per second. Hard to find at that time of night, but > >> we made it."
> > And, of course, this illustrates how hard it is for science-fiction to > > keep ahead of reality in some areas, since Casio now has more than one > > camera in their Exilim line-up that can shoot video at 1000 fps.
> By my standards, this is not such an illustration - "Q.U.R." was > published in 1943.
Of course, the electronic television camera was already invented by then - the Marconi system.
What you can't do yet is buy one of those on Mars after moons-set. You can, however, find a robot /with/ a camera, but not in the same place as ice for your drink /and/ in working order.
>> William December Starr <wdst...@panix.com> writes
>>> I just said "You've got your thing, they've got their thing" out >>> loud a few times. The pronunciation of the 'th' in the last two >>> words neither sounds different to my ears nor feels different to >>> my tongue and teeth.
>> Are you English? I'm puzzled as to how folks can think these two >> sounds are anywhere close to interchangeable.
>Raised from age 1.5 or so in downstate New York, then moved to the >Cambridge/Boston MA area at age 17, have lived here ever since (34+ >years).
Your problem is that your assume that anybody can hear differences in pronunciation. This is not so. It needs, if not necessarily formal training, at least some practice. It is a matter of common experience among those who take an interest in such things (you don't have to be a linguist) that a great many people, wherever they were raised, completely fail to recognise even marked differences when they are not significant in a language or dialect which they know. Quite often they will persist is asying "there is no difference" even when it has been pointed out and demonstrated. I became aware of this through learning by experience that I am particularly bad at it.
-- Don Aitken Mail to the From: address is not read. To email me, substitute "clara.co.uk" for "freeuk.com"
In article <hcr433$ts...@news.eternal-september.org>, Rebecca Rice <rebecca_r...@att.net> wrote:
> I have to admit that they sounded the same to me too, until > I tried the "hold your fingers on your Adam's apple" trick, > and I am a native English speaker.
In my experience, being a native speaker doesn't help for distinguishing sounds which don't have an impact on the meaning of words. There aren't any English word pairs which are distinguished only by voiced or unvoiced "th", so native speakers aren't set up to be able to tell the difference.
-- Mike Ash Radio Free Earth Broadcasting from our climate-controlled studios deep inside the Moon
On Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:36:51 -0500, Mike Ash <m...@mikeash.com> wrote: >In article <hcr433$ts...@news.eternal-september.org>, > Rebecca Rice <rebecca_r...@att.net> wrote:
>> I have to admit that they sounded the same to me too, until >> I tried the "hold your fingers on your Adam's apple" trick, >> and I am a native English speaker.
>In my experience, being a native speaker doesn't help for distinguishing >sounds which don't have an impact on the meaning of words. There aren't >any English word pairs which are distinguished only by voiced or >unvoiced "th", so native speakers aren't set up to be able to tell the >difference.
There are such word pairs, but they're so unlikely to be confused that most people don't notice -- "thy" and "thigh" has already been mentioned as one example.
I've read that infants actually go through a period of unlearning distinctions -- initially they make hundreds, maybe thousands of different phonemes while babbling, but as they acquire language they restrict the set of sounds they'll make, AND they start to treat some sounds as the same when they aren't, sounds that they were distinguishing a few weeks earlier.
Mike Ash wrote: > In article <hcr433$ts...@news.eternal-september.org>, > Rebecca Rice <rebecca_r...@att.net> wrote:
>> I have to admit that they sounded the same to me too, until >> I tried the "hold your fingers on your Adam's apple" trick, >> and I am a native English speaker.
> In my experience, being a native speaker doesn't help for > distinguishing sounds which don't have an impact on the meaning of > words. There aren't any English word pairs which are distinguished > only by voiced or unvoiced "th", so native speakers aren't set up to > be able to tell the difference.
> Mike Ash wrote: > > In article <hcr433$ts...@news.eternal-september.org>, > > Rebecca Rice <rebecca_r...@att.net> wrote:
> >> I have to admit that they sounded the same to me too, until > >> I tried the "hold your fingers on your Adam's apple" trick, > >> and I am a native English speaker.
> > In my experience, being a native speaker doesn't help for > > distinguishing sounds which don't have an impact on the meaning of > > words. There aren't any English word pairs which are distinguished > > only by voiced or unvoiced "th", so native speakers aren't set up to > > be able to tell the difference.
> thy/thigh > teeth/teethe
Good point. Perhaps I should say, when such pairs are rare but the different sounds are common, you aren't set up to distinguish between them except where it matters (and perhaps not even then; I suspect that, at least in the case of thy/thigh, the distinction is made by context).
-- Mike Ash Radio Free Earth Broadcasting from our climate-controlled studios deep inside the Moon
>>> I have to admit that they sounded the same to me too, until >>> I tried the "hold your fingers on your Adam's apple" trick, >>> and I am a native English speaker.
>> In my experience, being a native speaker doesn't help for >> distinguishing sounds which don't have an impact on the meaning of >> words. There aren't any English word pairs which are distinguished >> only by voiced or unvoiced "th", so native speakers aren't set up to >> be able to tell the difference.
>thy/thigh >teeth/teethe
wreath/wreathe
Hey, if you think getting people to recognize voiced vs. unvoiced TH is tough, try explaining the difference between W and WH, which doesn't exist at all in many dialects of English, but does in mine. (That is, I pronounce "weather" and "whether" differently, or "where" and "wear.")
Mike Ash wrote: > In article <hcsek8$8u...@news.eternal-september.org>, > "Mike Schilling" <mscottschill...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> Mike Ash wrote: >>> In article <hcr433$ts...@news.eternal-september.org>, >>> Rebecca Rice <rebecca_r...@att.net> wrote:
>>>> I have to admit that they sounded the same to me too, until >>>> I tried the "hold your fingers on your Adam's apple" trick, >>>> and I am a native English speaker.
>>> In my experience, being a native speaker doesn't help for >>> distinguishing sounds which don't have an impact on the meaning of >>> words. There aren't any English word pairs which are distinguished >>> only by voiced or unvoiced "th", so native speakers aren't set up >>> to >>> be able to tell the difference.
>> thy/thigh >> teeth/teethe
> Good point. Perhaps I should say, when such pairs are rare but the > different sounds are common, you aren't set up to distinguish > between > them except where it matters (and perhaps not even then; I suspect > that, at least in the case of thy/thigh, the distinction is made by > context).
Hell, if you said that, I wouldn't be able to argue with you.
Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote: > Hey, if you think getting people to recognize voiced vs. unvoiced TH > is tough, try explaining the difference between W and WH, which > doesn't exist at all in many dialects of English, but does in mine. > (That is, I pronounce "weather" and "whether" differently, or > "where" > and "wear.")
I think of that as a distinction to be made only when taking care to speak "properly", like saying EYEther instead of EEther. I've lived in California way too long to bother -- the yahoos here call the fruit an ORrange instead of an AAHrange, and can't hear the difference between Mary, merry, and marry.
On Nov 4, 9:46 am, "Mike Schilling" <mscottschill...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Butch Malahide wrote: > > At any rate, the status of > > "thy" as a word would be rather dubious if English were not a > > written > > language; there would be no way of telling if the "thy" in "thy > > will" > > is a separate word or just a prefix.
> If "thy" were a prefix, by analogy so would be "my", "his", "John's", > "the dog's", "my oldest sister's", etc.
Non sequitur. In Hungarian, which uses suffixes instead of prefixes to show possession, there are suffixes for "my", "thy", etc., but no special suffix for "the dog's". For exampla: isten = god istenem = my god istened = thy god istene = his/her/its god Janos istene = John's dog a kutya istene = the dog's god
Robert Carnegie <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote: > On Nov 4, 4:15B pm, na...@math.ohio-state.edu (Anthony Nance) wrote: >> Quadibloc <jsav...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote: >> > On Nov 4, 3:45B am, Butch Malahide <fred.gal...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> "Yes. I got one of those new electronic cameras--you know, one >> >> thousand exposures per second. Hard to find at that time of night, but >> >> we made it."
>> > And, of course, this illustrates how hard it is for science-fiction to >> > keep ahead of reality in some areas, since Casio now has more than one >> > camera in their Exilim line-up that can shoot video at 1000 fps.
>> By my standards, this is not such an illustration - "Q.U.R." was >> published in 1943.
> Of course, the electronic television camera was already invented by > then - the Marconi system.
Yep, and broadcasting in farfar less than 1000 frames (or fields) per second.
> What you can't do yet is buy one of those on Mars after moons-set. > You can, however, find a robot /with/ a camera, but not in the same > place as ice for your drink /and/ in working order.
Maybe such things will come standard with our fusion-powered flying cars. - Tony
On Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:07:41 GMT, Wayne Throop wrote: > And do other people pronounce it as I learned various places on the > east coast? I did find some place in West Virginia that pronounced the > town name of "Pulaski" (which I knew of from a town in Pennsylvania > as "puh-*la*-ski"), as "*pyoo*-la-ski". So you never can tell.)
Neither is correct ;-) (well, OK, maybe it is correct pronounciation for the name of that town, but not for the name of the man after whom the town was named).
-- Szymon Sokół (SS316-RIPE) -- Network Manager B Computer Center, AGH - University of Science and Technology, Cracow, Poland O http://home.agh.edu.pl/szymon/ PGP key id: RSA: 0x2ABE016B, DSS: 0xF9289982 F Free speech includes the right not to listen, if not interested -- Heinlein H
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