A whole new level of nerdiness

Over at Speculative Grammarian^TM I found this simple little game that they chose to call LingDoku ("Like SuDoku, But for Linguists"). I know it's a satirical journal so I'm embarrassed to say how much I could enjoy puzzles like this. The one they provided is very simple but imagine how useful a game like this would be to get practice with distinctive features in a phonology class. It's going in my lesson plans.

They provide nine IPA symbols--ɤ n β g b m z ŋ--representing a matrix of 3 places of articulation--bilabial alveolar and velar--and 3 manners of articulation--plosive fricative and nasal. No row or column can contain any symbols of common manner or place. They start with

d	-	ŋ
-	-	-
-	n	-

The completed grid of course would be

d	β	ŋ
m	g	z
ɤ	n	b

That's almost as basic as a grid can be. So how about a larger puzzle. Or a grid in which the symbols are filled in and the job is to identify what features are being used to organize the rows and columns. coronal dorsal labial bilabial lateral voicing +/-ATR retroflex stridency sonorance...

We could add the variable of binary and absolute features or even throw some feature geometry in there.

It'd be as fun as doing compass proofs in geometry.

Approximating season

In a comment a while back Nancy Friedman mentioned some voting options she found on the Overheard in New York site. She wrote

Also note that you can vote for the Overheard quotes. Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down, and WTF? need no explanation. But I had to Google "Alsome," which turns out to be the way the REALLY cool folks say and spell "awesome." (Well, spell it anyway. I'm not sure the two words are pronounced very differently. Hey, Linguist Guy, whaddya think?)

I think some people might pronounce it with an [l] or more likely one of the darker L's--either a velarized alveolar lateral approximant [ɫ] or the velar lateral approximant [ʟ].

English commonly uses the dark-l in a coda position and the light-l in an onset. The usual transcription of the dark-l indicates that velarization is a secondary articulation. [l] is an alveolar consonant and is articulated with the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge. Velarization means that in a secondary articulation the back of the tongue is also raised giving it a 'dark' sound. Compare the first and second L in little. Or the L in light with the L in call. The difference is indicated by the tilde that runs through the symbol [ɫ]. [liɾɫ̩] [lait] [kaɫ]

The velar lateral approximant is primarily velar and so the raised back of the tongue (the dorsum, think the dorsal fin on the back of a fish) is the primary articulation. The tip of the tongue isn't the main indicator of place. Although this is not a standard phone in English it does occur in some accents and some pronunciations as when a coda L is left markedly open. In fast speech the L in a phrase like 'all of them' might remain completely dorsal without any alveolar articulation.

Consider how close to 'awvem' that can sound. Now consider that some dialects will pronounce L's like W's. Ever heard someone say 'widow' instead of 'little'? It's a common early pronunciation among children because the sounds are similar acoustically. I know one child who pronounced 'flower' like 'wallow'--a complete reversal of the [l] and [w] approximants. Tho this might have been metathesis instead of an articulation issue.

Just earlier today I heard 'saw' pronounced before a vowel like 'sawl'. It was overheard only once so I'm not sure if it was a velar lateral or a velarized alveolar lateral, but it was definitely an approximant. I've heard it before. I asked a friend if she hears this a lot around here in Nebraska. She rolled her eyes and gave an exasperated "Ugh. Yes."

Before a vowel it's very much like I sawr 'im leaving which we would expect to hear in some northeastern American dialects. The approximant makes a nice onset for the following syllable.

I imagine also that to those who are used to hearing [ɑ] in 'awesome' the northeastern closing and rounding and raising to [ɔ] could be interpreted the same as a velar approximation.

Whatever the process there are plenty of likely explanations for the awesome/alsome alternation.

Update: Post [l] flapping

During a news story this morning, a young woman spoke of the guilt she sometimes feels regarding any benefit she has received because of her father's death. The setting of the story is West Virginia. Why is the place relevant? Because in her comment the woman (named Amber) used the word "guilty" and pronounced it with the flapped 't' I mentioned in the last post. Evidence then (though not proof) that the environment for flapping has opened up to include [l] before the [t].

To formalize the previous rule we would first assume a post stress position (although that can be complicated/refuted) then we have some choices. I'll present two of them to explain the [t]-->[ɾ] conditioning environment.

We could rely on approximants and formalize the environment as /[+approx][-lat]__[+approx]. This would not require the added analysis of [l] in the pre-[t] environment--so it's not as much fun to do. The [-lat] strikes me as an ad hoc feature requirement.

We could make the argument that [l] is not +continuant before [t], so the rule could be / [+son,+cont]__[+approx]. It would be fun to find evidence in other places that could support the loss of continuance in certain environments.

To re formulate the rule (as it appears some dialects flap in a wider environment) we can change the first environment very simply: [+approx]__[+approx]. This shows enough simplicity for me to accept it. It accounts for the forms I've mentioned. It shows reasonable motivation.

But now we have to complicated things again by introducing a word like 'antifreeze' that shows something very like flapping. According to the last rule mentioned this would be pronounced with the underlying [t]. Why then do so many of us flap or completely elide the [t]? We'll come back to it.