26
votes
Accepted
What is the function of the soft sign (Ь) in Russian?
WARNING: The question is sooo many-sided, it is very wide and can be split into at least 3 different questions. I'll answer it all, don't tell me later that you haven't been warned the answer would be ...
- 17.7k
14
votes
Accepted
What are the differences between palatal consonant and palatalized consonant?
Theoretically, there is a difference in most cases.
In IPA, the raised j symbol <ʲ>, represents "palatalization," or a "palatal secondary articulation." The concept of a "secondary articulation" ...
- 17.4k
10
votes
From Italian to Spanish, consonant + "i" goes to consonant + "l"?
Spanish and Italian are both languages descended from Latin. As such, many of their words are cognate sharing a common Latin ancestor, but the sounds in these words evolved over time and evolved ...
- 3,084
7
votes
What phonological process changes е to ё in Russian?
In the old Slavic languages, the sound [o] could never follow the palatalized consonants (which in those times also included the hushing consonants Ш [ʃ], Ж [ʒ], Ч [tʃ], Щ [ʃtʲ], and also Ц [tsʲ]), ...
- 17.7k
6
votes
Accepted
How are the palatal approximant and palatalization different in Slavic languages?
An old question, but perhaps the answer might still be useful.
First, I believe that regarding Slavic languages, iotation is considered a feature of vowels (iotated vowels are preceded by [j]), while ...
4
votes
Why does Polish have male and female accents?
I have known a few languages other than Polish throughout my lifetime, which include Russian, English, French, Greek, and Hebrew, but in none of them have I observed any consistent difference between ...
- 759
4
votes
Exceptions to Intrasyllabic Synharmony in modern Czech?
The so-called "Sound Law" and the thing that was regular is 1500 or more years old, when it was a general rule of articulation in the proto-language. It was a subconscious, unavoidable "...
- 80.3k
4
votes
What is the function of the soft sign (Ь) in Russian?
From the point of view of the spelling, Ь simply means "the previous consonant should be palatalized". See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatalization_(phonetics) to learn what palatalization is, it'...
4
votes
Accepted
Why are palatalized consonants commonly accompanied by stretched lips?
If the consonant in question is neither labial nor labialized, the lip position accompanying its pronunciation is characterized only by that of the neighboring vowel, it doesn't depend on whether the ...
- 17.7k
4
votes
Accepted
Slavic second palatalization
You probably took the description of the second Slavic palatalization from some simplified description. It isn't the case that it would only happen before ě (yat') and not before i. It happened before ...
- 1,221
3
votes
Accepted
Why is there a Second Palatalization in personal nouns but not in non-personal nouns in Nominative Plural in Slavic languages
That's not a common-Slavic, but purely Polish phenomenon, since Polish distinguishes masculine persons' vs. other nouns' declension patterns in the plural (human vs. nonhuman). In other Slavic ...
- 17.7k
3
votes
Examples of ě₁ palatalization
What is often marked ě in Slavic studies was probably actually a long e (*ē, with some unspecified degree of openness). I am not sure there is any widely accepted intermediate *ě₁ that would be ...
- 1,221
3
votes
palatalization and consonant inventories
First, you should keep palatal and palatalized separate. Norwegian has a palatalized fricative [ç] but doesn't have palatalized consonants, likewise Sanskrit, likewise, Hungarian and North Saami have ...
- 80.3k
2
votes
Is there a difference between /ɕ/ and /sʲ/?
Per the official IPA definitions, ɕ and ʑ stand for alveolo-palatal fricatives, and sʲ and zʲ stand for palatalized alveolar fricatives.
The official definitions are vague and so do not fully specify ...
- 17.4k
2
votes
From Italian to Spanish, consonant + "i" goes to consonant + "l"?
Just for (a random) curiosity :D :
Latin pl, cl and fl bacame [ʃ] in portuguese (written ch).
Example:
planum > chão (doublet of "plano")
plattus > chato (doublet of "prato")
plenum > cheio (...
- 1,416
2
votes
From Italian to Spanish, consonant + "i" goes to consonant + "l"?
I would say, /l/ in specific Latin clusters was simply vocalized in Italian. That means the consonant became a vowel, which is not all that uncommon for a sound like this. Take for example r-...
2
votes
Catalan assimilation of 's' /s/ → [ʃ] after palatal consonants 'ny' /ɲ/ and 'll' /ʎ/
I think palatalization of final s in such environments is the most common outcome, and I wouldn't trust native speakers not versed on linguistics since the difference is not phonemic, let alone ...
- 121
2
votes
Can dentals be palatalized?
There is certainly no phonetic reason that dentals cannot be palatalised.
Phonologically it's trickier. Contrasts between dentals and alveolars are already unusual (even the contrast between /θ/ & ...
- 6,486
2
votes
Can dentals be palatalized?
It is hard to say. Phoible suggests some candidate languages. In some cases (t̪ʲ|tʲ) the description in the original source is not clear enough that they (the compilers) can decide whether the segment ...
- 80.3k
2
votes
How can the continuum s-sʲ-ç-ɕ-ʃ-ʂ be described in technical terms?
From a diachronic perspective, this is simply retraction vs advancement. The place of articulation appears as the most "important" part of such a series, and so that's how the phenomenon is ...
- 6,958
2
votes
Accepted
Does loss of conditioning envt automatically create new phonemes?
The answer depends on which definition of "phoneme" you use. Under the classical taxonomic definition, where you analyze actual sounds into a more abstract system, two sounds are allophones if their ...
- 80.3k
1
vote
Accepted
Catalan assimilation of 's' /s/ → [ʃ] after palatal consonants 'ny' /ɲ/ and 'll' /ʎ/
L’Atles Lingüístic del Domini Català
Native speakers
Here are some self-aware discussions by native speakers noting the phenomenon:
https://www.racocatala.cat/forums/fil/176056/grups-lls-i-nys
...
- 3,084
1
vote
palatalization of plosive consonants
First, it is not true that plosives are only heard when they are released. VC formant transitions also exist, and can be used to identify consonants. In fact, when you encounter rounding or ...
- 80.3k
1
vote
What is the difference in articulation between /CjV/ and /CʲV/?
There is no IPA principle that prefers superscript rather than regular j based on pronunciation alone. Both [pj] and [pʲ] identify the same phonetic fact, but differ in phonological analysis. In ...
- 80.3k
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