[PLUG-TALK] Spanish b

Denis Heidtmann denis.heidtmann at gmail.com
Sun Nov 29 16:25:52 UTC 2020


Great expansion.  I will have to study it some more to be sure I
understand.  I wonder, John, did you say what you intended in the statement:
"As a result it is not uncommon to encounter non-linguist native Spanish
speakers who are aware that their voiced plosives fricate between vowels."
If you did, I certainly need to study some more.

-Denis


On Sat, Nov 28, 2020 at 11:23 PM John Jason Jordan <johnxj at gmx.com> wrote:

> On Sat, 28 Nov 2020 18:56:44 -0800
> Denis Heidtmann <denis.heidtmann at gmail.com> dijo:
>
> >For John,
> >I sent your essay to an east coast friend.  She responded:
> >'Bill, who taught Spanish phonetics, disagrees with the idea that the
> >Spanish don't notice the difference in the "b" sounds, because they
> >observe the rules very well.  It's a hard "b" at the beginning of an
> >utterance after the period, but intervocalically it's the fricativa.
> >Consonants are difficult for some learners, esp. the "d" and the "t,"
> >because intervocalic "d" is pronounced softly like the "th" in "they."'
> >
> >I would have to reread your essay, but I did not think you said they
> >do not notice the difference.  If you would like to whip the horse
> >some more, feel free.
>
> OK, here's the deal between 'phoneme' and 'allophone.' We refer to the
> phoneme with (usually) the most common occurrence of the sound, and
> 'allophones' refers to the main sound and all of its variations. So,
> for example, English has both [t] and [tʰ], where [tʰ] is one of the
> allophones of [t]. The [tʰ] occurs only when /t/ occurs alone at the
> start of a syllable that has primary stress:
>
>         table   [tʰeɪbl̩]
>         stable  [steɪbl̩]
>
> We tend to use / / to mark phonemes, and [ ] (in IPA) to denote an
> allophone. In the above example, /t/ is the English phoneme, and its
> allophones are [t] and [tʰ]. And more to the point, I doubt you will
> find any native English speakers, save those with education in English
> phonetics, who are aware that they aspirate [p, t, and k] when they
> occur alone at the start of a stressed syllable. That's the deal with
> phonemes and allophones - native speakers are generally unaware of the
> difference.
>
> Now as to the Spanish /b/ and its allophones [b] and [β], many native
> speakers have become aware of the difference because schools sometimes
> teach the difference as they attempt to explain how to spell the
> language. Your east coast friend points out something that I did not
> explain thoroughly: The fricated [b, d, and ɡ] are very frequently
> lenited to the point where they disappear, e.g., the phrase 'todo el
> mundo' (everybody) comes out in ordinary speech as [toːl mundo] - the
> [ð] allophone of /d/ disappeared. This happens so often that many
> linguists  refer to the fricated stops as approximants (semivowels). As
> a result it is not uncommon to encounter non-linguist native Spanish
> speakers who are aware that their voiced plosives fricate between
> vowels.
>
> I have also encountered native speakers who claim that they can hear
> the difference between [b] and [v]. If you say a words containing [b]
> and [v] to these people, invariably they give you the correct letter.
> But they do so because they have been taught the spelling - they
> couldn't possibly be getting it from the pronunciation because there is
> normally no difference.
>
> And having said that, there exist a few native speakers who actually
> pronounce the /b/ and /v/ differently. Such pronunciation is an
> affectation, even though they have probably forgotten when and how they
> acquired it. Similarly, there are English speakers who pronounce the
> 't' in 'often' and even 'listen,' even though it never existed even in
> the early days of Anglo Saxon. People strive to be 'correct,' even when
> doing so makes them look foolish to a linguist.
>
> You can find proof of my argument by going to Mexico and taking note of
> hand made signs created by people who barely know how to read. You will
> find frequent use of 'b' for 'v' and vice-versa.
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