# English: Modification of /h/ in front of certain vowels



## JuanEscritor

*Moderator note: Split from here.*

I believe [ç] is a common allophone of /h/ before /i/.  I always assumed this was because of /i/ being a high front vowel, but couldn't figure out why I didn't have [ç] before /ɪ/ since it is also roughly a high front vowel.

Now, however, the answer seems clear as day; since my /ɪ/ isn't close to my /i/ then there would be no reason to expect them to trigger similar allophonic processes.  Right?  Well, I guess that answer depends on whether /ɪ/ triggers [ç] in other dialects where /i/ triggers [ç].

So, in BE and other AE dialects that do not lower /ɪ/, does /h/ become [ç] before /ɪ/?

JE


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## berndf

I don't think /h/ becomes [ç] in from of /ɪ/. This happens in front of /j/ as in _human_.


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## merquiades

JuanEscritor said:


> I believe [ç] is a common allophone of /h/ before /i/.  I always assumed this was because of /i/ being a high front vowel, but couldn't figure out why I didn't have [ç] before /ɪ/ since it is also roughly a high front vowel.
> 
> Now, however, the answer seems clear as day; since my /ɪ/ isn't close to my /i/ then there would be no reason to expect them to trigger similar allophonic processes.  Right?  Well, I guess that answer depends on whether /ɪ/ triggers [ç] in other dialects where /i/ triggers [ç].
> 
> So, in BE and other AE dialects that do not lower /ɪ/, does /h/ become [ç] before /ɪ/?
> 
> JE



Do you have an example of when you think this /h/ to /ç/ should be triggered?  When I say both "hit, hill" and "heat, heal" neither have /ç/.


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## JuanEscritor

merquiades said:


> Do you have an example of when you think this /h/ to /ç/ should be triggered?  When I say both "hit, hill" and "heat, heal" neither have /ç/.



I find that very strange. Saying _heat_ with  is awkward for me; it is even more awkward to say a word like _human_ with [hj].  It might be slightly inaccurate to say that the sound in both of these words is [ç] because I believe the true process at work involves the /i/ and /j/ adopting the voiceless fricative qualities of the /h/ phoneme, but transcribing this as [ç] seems sufficient enough to demonstrate the general idea.

Are there any allophonic processes in your speech triggered by /i/ but not by /ɪ/?

JE


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## berndf

JuanEscritor said:


> I find that very strange. Saying _heat_ with  is awkward for me; it is even more awkward to say a word like _human_ with [hj].  It might be slightly inaccurate to say that the sound in both of these words is [ç] because I believe the true process at work involves the /i/ and /j/ adopting the voiceless fricative qualities of the /h/ phoneme, but transcribing this as [ç] seems sufficient enough to demonstrate the general idea.
> 
> Are there any allophonic processes in your speech triggered by /i/ but not by /ɪ/?
> 
> JE


/i/ is higher then /ɪ/ and may cause a constriction that may give the /h/ a touch of a palatal approximant. But [ç] is a fricative and that is still a completely different cup of tea. My native language has phonemic distinction between  and [ ç] and I can hear a [ç] in human but never in _heat_. When I try to say [çi:t] result sound closer to _sheet_ than to_ heat_.


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## JuanEscritor

berndf said:


> /i/ is higher then /ɪ/ and may cause a constriction that may give the /h/ a touch of a palatal approximant.


That's just the thing, I think it is the palatal approximate getting a touch of /h/ rather than the other way around.  In _human_ the palatal approximate takes on the voiceless fricative features of /h/, creating something on the lines of a voiceless palatal fricative ([ç]).  Granted the [ç] may still be somewhat more approximate in nature than fully fricative, but I think using [ç] to transcribe the resulting allophone serves a worth-while function of conveying that the palatal /j/ and high front /i/ take on a fricative quality when preceded by phonemic /h/, even if the resulting allophone don't qualify as [ç] proper.

If the confusion is significant enough, diacritics can always be used to show the [ç] as being lowered and somewhat backed in the case of _heat_.



> But [ç] is a fricative and that is still a completely different cup of tea. My native language has phonemic distinction between  and [ ç] and I can hear a [ç] in human but never in _heat_. When I try to say [çi:t] result sound closer to _sheet_ than to_ heat_.



I do think we need to describe what is happening with the /h/ in a word like _heat_, though, and using [ç] (perhaps modified by diacritics) seems to be the closest IPA symbol we have to do this.

Anyway, I guess this is straying a bit.  It would be insightful to hear from some native speakers who preserve a high /ɪ/ _and_ possess the /h/ → [ç] alteration as to whether there is any hint of [ç] in words like _hit_.

JE


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## berndf

JuanEscritor said:


> It would be insightful to hear from some native speakers who preserve a high /ɪ/ _and_ possess the /h/ → [ç] alteration as to whether there is any hint of [ç] in words like _hit_.


/ɪ/ has always been significantly lower than /i/. The question you raised in the OP was in relation to /e/.


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## JuanEscritor

berndf said:


> /ɪ/ has always been significantly lower than /i/. The question you raised in the OP was in relation to /e/.


You mean to tell me that you believe the process mentioned in the OP to be a case of raising /e/ rather than lowering /ɪ/?

I don't think that is what is happening; I think my /ɪ/ is significantly lower than in the standard forms of either BE or AE.  My followup questions were an attempt to figure out just how much higher /ɪ/ is in other dialects than in my own speech.  The issue of whether or not /ɪ/ triggers allophonic variations similar to those triggered by /i/ was an attempt to address that question. 

One thing I note is that _who_ triggers a similar process with the /h/ while _hook_ and _hoof_ (/hʊf/) do not.  I haven't yet measured my /ʊ/ yet, though, to see exactly how high it is, and whether its height is comparable to the height of /ɪ/ in other dialects.

JE


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## berndf

JuanEscritor said:


> You mean to tell me that you believe the process mentioned in the OP to be a case of raising /e/ rather than lowering /ɪ/?


No, I meant lowering /ɪ/ _even further_. /ɪ/ was never so high that is could cause /h/ to sound "[ç]-ish". I could relate to your description that /h/ in _heat_ can have a hissing touch; but never in _hit_; /ɪ/ is never so high, so much fronted and so tense that it could cause such a modification of a preceding /h/.





JuanEscritor said:


> One thing I note is that _who_ triggers a similar process with the /h/ while _hook_ and _hoof_ (/hʊf/) do not.


_<deleted> _


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## Dan2

Having discussed the realization of /h/ before /i/ in an abstract way in several posts, maybe it's time for us to take advantage of modern technology and look at some actual data.

JE, you said, "Saying _heat_ with  is awkward for me".  It doesn't seem awkward to me, and when I listen to recordings of "he" and "heat" I usually hear [hi(t)].  Can you make available a recording of "heat" as you naturally say it?  Then we'd know for sure what we're talking about.

Alternatively (or, better, in addition), can you listen to the three recordings of "he" at www.forvo.com/word/he/#en They all sound natural to me; I wonder how you hear them.

---
Earlier in the thread there was a discussion of a possible merger between /I/ and /ɛ/ and mention was made of Southern US dialects that merge these phonemes before /m/ and /n/ and realize them in a distinctly diphthongized way.  In fact the merger is more widespread, involving a large section of the central US and applies before /m/, /n/, and often /l/.  Here the vowel is not diphthongized more than in standard US speech.

---
With respect to determining height and backness of vowels thru measurement of formants F1 and F2 (the focus of the original post):  I'm aware of the general tendency for vowel height to be correlated with lower F1 and vowel backness to be correlated with lower F2, but I wonder how literally these correspondences should be taken.  Articulatorily there's more to tongue control than just height and backness, and acoustically and perceptually there's more to the spectrum than just F1 and F2.  Also, most English vowels show some degree of diphongization (not to mention transitions into and out of consonants), so stating a meaningful F1 and and F2 for a given vowel is not a trivial matter.


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## JuanEscritor

Dan2 said:


> Having discussed the realization of /h/ before /i/ in an abstract way in several posts, maybe it's time for us to take advantage of modern technology and look at some actual data.
> 
> JE, you said, "Saying _heat_ with  is awkward for me".  It doesn't seem awkward to me, and when I listen to recordings of "he" and "heat" I usually hear [hi(t)].  Can you make available a recording of "heat" as you naturally say it?  Then we'd know for sure what we're talking about.



I just did a recording.  Definitely different /h/ realizations in _heat_ and _hot_.  I will see about getting them uploaded somewhere.




> With respect to determining height and backness of vowels thru measurement of formants F1 and F2 (the focus of the original post):  I'm aware of the general tendency for vowel height to be correlated with lower F1 and vowel backness to be correlated with lower F2, but I wonder how literally these correspondences should be taken.  Articulatorily there's more to tongue control than just height and backness, and acoustically and perceptually there's more to the spectrum than just F1 and F2.  Also, most English vowels show some degree of diphongization (not to mention transitions into and out of consonants), so stating a meaningful F1 and and F2 for a given vowel is not a trivial matter.


With a clear recording it isn't too bad finding the formants, at least in my opinion.

JE


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## merquiades

@JuanEscritor.  I think I finally understand what you mean about /h/ becoming /ç ish/.  If I take the word "heat" and say it really slowly like hhhhhiiiiiii::t there is some kind of constriction that forms similarly but not exactly identical to /ç/.  But at normal speed there is absolutely nothing, just /hi:t/.  Do you mean you do this even when you say "heat" normal speed?

*Moderator note: Copied from other thread.*


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## berndf

Dan2 said:


> Alternatively (or, better, in addition), can you listen to the three recordings of "he" at www.forvo.com/word/he/#en They all sound natural to me; I wonder how you hear them.


The recording (most clearly audible in escott6371's) show a secondary, palatal constriction, but the basic glottal fricative, defining characteristic of /h/,  is unmistakably there. Compare to the German pronunciation of _Chi_ [çi:] here.

The problem is that /h/ and /i:/ are merged in escott6371's pronunciation. If you download the sample and separate the voiced onset from the voiced nucleus you will find a short and faint onset one could indeed transcribe [ç]. But the _ is overlaid by a glottal [ɦ]. To double check it is not just an idiosyncratic way to pronounce [i:], compare the same speaker's pronunciation of [i:] in Enoch where this glottal part is completely absent.

By contrast, in the German guy's pronunciation of Chi you can see a full force, full length unvoiced [ç] followed by an unmodified [i:]._


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## Youngfun

berndf said:


> /i/ is higher then /ɪ/ and may cause a  constriction that may give the /h/ a touch of a palatal approximant. But  [ç] is a fricative and that is still a completely  different cup of tea. My native language has phonemic distinction  between  and [ ç] and I can hear a [ç] in human but never in _heat_. When I try to say [çi:t] result sound closer to _sheet_ than to_ heat_.






merquiades said:


> @JuanEscritor.  I think I finally understand what you mean about /h/ becoming /ç ish/.  If I take the word "heat" and say it really slowly like hhhhhiiiiiii::t there is some kind of constriction that forms similarly but not exactly identical to /ç/.  But at normal speed there is absolutely nothing, just /hi:t/.  Do you mean you do this even when you say "heat" normal speed?



This is interesting. 
This reminded me of when I was 12 and my English teacher told me I wasn't pronouncing correctly the word _he_.
In neither of my native languages this sound exists: in Italian the /h/ consonant simply doesn't exist; while in Chinese we have /x/ as the closest consonant to English /h/, and it's pronounced  in Southern varieties (and by me) but it can carry any vowel, but not _* (at that time I used to pronounce all English /ɪ/ as /i/).
Furthermore, in Chinese and in Italian the /i/ is pronounced with the tongue touching the palate.
Basically I was trying to pronounce /hi/, but I was touching the palate with my tongue, and it came out a weird sound, with a sort of "clacking sound" caused by the contact of the tongue with the palate, maybe something close to the [ç] you're talking about.
My teacher told me: "No... Don't use your tongue, it's [hɪ]! Not [çi]..." -- but I couldn't manage to pronounce it correctly.
Now when I pronounce he or heat, I try to pronounce [hɪ] or [hi:] with the mouth open wider, without the tongue touching the palate, and it seems OK.
Then I have a doubt: is English  pronounced with a greater tongue-palate distance than Italian or Chinese?

*Chinese transliterates English /hɪ~hi/ sounds as /ɕi/, as in Himalaya: 喜马拉雅 /ɕimalaja/; or Hillary: 希拉里 /ɕilali/._


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## JuanEscritor

merquiades said:


> <...>
> 
> @JuanEscritor.  I think I finally understand what you mean about /h/ becoming /ç ish/.  If I take the word "heat" and say it really slowly like hhhhhiiiiiii::t there is some kind of constriction that forms similarly but not exactly identical to /ç/.  But at normal speed there is absolutely nothing, just /hi:t/.  Do you mean you do this even when you say "heat" normal speed?
> 
> <...>



<...>

*Moderator note: Copied from other thread.
*
As for [ç], I use this all the time in stressed words involving initial /hi/ or /hj/.  It is awkward for me to pronounce them [hi]  and [hj].  Gives my jaw a funny feeling.

JE


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## JuanEscritor

Youngfun said:


> My teacher told me: "No... Don't use your tongue, it's [hɪ]! Not [çi]..." -- but I couldn't manage to pronounce it correctly.


I have never heard of _he_ being pronounced [hɪ].  Where was your teacher from, or was s/he not a native speaker? 

JE


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## Alxmrphi

JuanEscritor said:


> As for [ç], I use this all the time in stressed words involving initial  /hi/ or /hj/.  It is awkward for me to pronounce them [hi]  and [hj].   Gives my jaw a funny feeling.


Same for me. The same feeling of trying to use the [k] of 'cow' as the first sound in 'key' - my jaw just doesn't like it and I pull a really stupid face when trying to consciously do it.


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## JuanEscritor

I have been asked to upload my own production of some of these words where /h/ changes to be [ç]-like; here are the recordings:

View attachment HEAT.mp3
View attachment HUMAN.mp3
View attachment HOT.mp3
View attachment HUE_QUEUE_PEW.mp3
View attachment Ç_H.mp3

As part of the aspiration of words with /pi/, /pj/, /ki/, /kj/, the aspiration is produced in a [ç]-like manner; It is not as consistently produced this way in words with /ti/.  Also, in /ki/ and /kj/ words I have /k/ → [c] as Alxmrphi mentioned.  Combinations with /j/ have a higher tongue position on the '[ç]' than combinations with /i/.  Only in very forceful speech do I produce anything approaching a [ç] when /ɪ/ is involved, so I didn't include any examples of this.

Enjoy.


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## Youngfun

I would like to let you listen a recording I made recently, where I read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English.
Recording 1
Recording 2
There aren't many word with "h", but the word "human" appears twice, then the last word is "brotherhood" (in which I pronounce the h)
Cause I can't distinguish the sounds  and [ç], would you analyse my speech, and tell me which sound I actually pronounce?
Thank you very much.


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## merquiades

JuanEscritor, listening to your recordings, I don't think you pronounce the /h/ any differently than I do.  I don't really hear /ç/ in "heat" but maybe that's just me.

Youngfun.  I think in the second recording you say /çuman/.  Your pronunciation seems great to me!  Your /h/ is bit stronger than I would pronounce it.


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## Alxmrphi

merquiades said:


> I don't really hear /ç/ in "heat" but maybe that's just me.


It's definitely there. Not many people do because of the nature of the switch. It's an allophonic variant and the whole reason we can call it allophonic is that it's generally below the level of consciousness and quite conditioned. It's completely normal for a lot of people to pick up on it, not some defect of your own. Before studying phonetics, I would not have been able to hear it either.

Try repeating the names "Howard" and "Hugh" and focus on where the initial sound is coming from in *Hugh*. Try to use that sound in "Howard", you'll hear how absolutely weird/wrong it sounds, which should be illustrative of the difference You should realise that the front vowel has dragged that original  so far forward it's not even in a place compatible to start pronouncing the name Howard. You need to pull it significantly further back to start saying *Howard*. This is the distinction.


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## berndf

Alxmrphi said:


> It's definitely there. Not many people do because of the nature of the switch. It's an allophonic variant and the whole reason we can call it allophonic is that it's generally below the level of consciousness and quite conditioned. It's completely normal for a lot of people to pick up on it, not some defect of your own. Before studying phonetics, I would not have been able to hear it either.
> 
> Try repeating the names "Howard" and "Hugh" and focus on where the initial sound is coming from in *Hugh*. Try to use that sound in "Howard", you'll hear how absolutely weird/wrong it sounds, which should be illustrative of the difference You should realise that the front vowel has dragged that original  so far forward it's not even in a place compatible to start pronouncing the name Howard. You need to pull it significantly further back to start saying *Howard*. This is the distinction.


I am not so sure. I hear a sound that would qualify as a phonemic /ç/ in my language, that has phonemic distinction between the sounds, in the pronunciation of _human_ but not in the pronunciation of _heat_.

This is how the fictitious words _hiet_ and _chiet _would sound in German View attachment hiet-chiet.mp3. To me, the recording of heat is definitely closer to the former.


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## Alxmrphi

> I am not so sure. I hear a sound that would qualify as a phonemic /ç/ in my language, that has phonemic distinction between the sounds, in the pronunciation of _human but not inthe pronunciation of heat._


I see what you mean. It's definitely there in hju- clusters but less 'strictly' with forwarded vowels. I can say _heat_ with a forwarded version [ç] and also not that far forward (but much more forward than ) and I am not sure which one I would choose in casual speech, probably a mixture of them both. I admit I was less focused on labelling it _phonetically_ but more trying to show a forward/back distinction based on the following vowel, which the earlier posted indicated by not being able to hear a difference.

Oh my, I thought the earlier poster said they couldn't hear it in _*human *_and not _heat_. My bad.
So many h-words floating around .


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## Roy776

merquiades said:


> JuanEscritor, listening to your recordings, I don't think you pronounce the /h/ any differently than I do.  I don't really hear /ç/ in "heat" but maybe that's just me.
> 
> Youngfun.  I think in the second recording you say /çuman/.  Your pronunciation seems great to me!  Your /h/ is bit stronger than I would pronounce it.



German has this sound, so I'm used to hearing it, but what Youngfun pronounces there is not really a /ç/, at least not a very strong one.
Here's my recording: http://vocaroo.com/i/s0NfHmYBJ1KW
The first one is human with normal H, the second with a /ç/. Try and compare. German actually has three of these similar sounds, so here's a recording of the three different sounds, for you to compare:
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0b3JcVXtOzp
1) ich /ɪç/
2) hab' /ˈhaːb/
3) mach /ˈmaχ/


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## merquiades

Roy776 said:


> German has this sound, so I'm used to hearing it, but what Youngfun pronounces there is not really a /ç/, at least not a very strong one.
> Here's my recording: http://vocaroo.com/i/s0NfHmYBJ1KW
> The first one is human with normal H, the second with a /ç/. Try and compare. German actually has three of these similar sounds, so here's a recording of the three different sounds, for you to compare:
> http://vocaroo.com/i/s0b3JcVXtOzp
> 1) ich /ɪç/
> 2) hab' /ˈhaːb/
> 3) mach /ˈmaχ/



Thanks Roy.  I can distinguish these sounds in German, no problem.  /ç/ is almost like an sh- sound in "ich".   I just don't hear them in English.  /çi:t/ for heat with that sound seems bizarre.  In "human" I can see the palatizing effect more easily but still not to the point of /çuman/ with the German sound.


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## Roy776

merquiades said:


> Thanks Roy.  I can distinguish these sounds in German, no problem.  /ç/ is almost like an sh- sound in "ich".   I just don't hear them in English.  /çi:t/ for heat with that sound seems bizarre.  In "human" I can see the palatizing effect more easily but still not to the point of /çuman/ with the German sound.



I agree. /çi:t/ sounds completely wrong to my ears, /çuman/ not so much. I notice a slight difference in my pronunciation of human when it is preceded by a word ending in t, but it's not a /ç/. It reminds me more of Czech Ť, merging T and U to a certain extent, but even that is not an accurate description.
This topic has now actually made me unsure about my pronunciation  I normally pronounce it with a silent h, thus starting with u as in universe. Could this assumed /ç/ pronunciation maybe stem from a silent H consonant at the beginning?


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## merquiades

Czech Ť, merging T and U to a certain extent isn't /tju/?  Or maybe I'm trying to acquaint it with Russian soft t followed by a soft vowel.... Russian has no /h/ but /x/ before e/i moves forward a bit but it's not /ç/ either.  Now I'm trying to figure out just what it is.  I think you have to do something in the front of your mouth in German with /ç/ like smile a little bit, no?

A lot of people say /ju:man/ without the /h/ as in "a yuman being" particularly in the Northeast.


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## Roy776

merquiades said:


> Czech Ť, merging T and U to a certain extent isn't /tju/?  Or maybe I'm trying to acquaint it with Russian soft t followed by a soft vowel.... Russian has no /h/ but /x/ before e/i moves forward a bit but it's not /ç/ either.  Now I'm trying to figure out just what it is.  I think you have to do something in the front of your mouth in German with /ç/ like smile a little bit, no?
> 
> A lot of people say /ju:man/ without the /h/ as in "a yuman being" particularly in the Northeast.



Czech Ť is a T with a J directly following it, so you wouldn't pronounce Ťu like the Spanish 'tú', but more like the 'tue' in 'tuesday'.

EDIT:
I've just checked Wiktionary on the word human and it provides us with the following pronunciations:
/ˈçjuː.mən̩/ _and_ /ˈhjuː.mən̩/
(NY, some other US dialects) IPA: /ˈjuː.mən̩/

So my pronunciation of 'human' seems to match the one of the NY dialect. And, who would've thought, the word human indeed contains a /ç/! Now the question remains how trustworthy Wiktionary really is.

Furthermore, the English Wikipedia article on English phonology doesn't list it under consonants, but the German one does.


> /ç/: z. B. *h*ue, Rei*ch*, Gemuetli*ch*keit. In fast  allen Mundarten aus Vereinfachung von /hju:/ zu /ç(j)u:/ entstanden (in  den übrigen Mundarten /hju:/ oder /ju:/). Tritt außerdem in Fremdwörtern  auf (meist aber als [k] ausgesprochen).


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## JuanEscritor

Youngfun said:


> I would like to let you listen a recording I made recently, where I read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English.
> Recording 1
> Recording 2
> There aren't many word with "h", but the word "human" appears twice, then the last word is "brotherhood" (in which I pronounce the h)
> Cause I can't distinguish the sounds  and [ç], would you analyse my speech, and tell me which sound I actually pronounce?
> Thank you very much.



Yes, _human_ in recording 2 is very different than how I say it; I don't here a glide [j] between the [ç] and  in your recording.

I'll have to listen to the rest of it later and see what other interesting things there are.

Thanks for uploading these by the way!

JE

ABE: The second instance of _human_ doesn't sound like it uses [ç] at all; just .


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## Youngfun

JuanEscritor said:


> Yes, _human_ in recording 2 is very different than how I say it; I don't here a glide [j] between the [ç] and  in your recording.
> 
> I'll have to listen to the rest of it later and see what other interesting things there are.
> 
> Thanks for uploading these by the way!
> 
> JE



So, do you think I'm saying [çuman]?

Thanks everybody for comments about my recording.
I listened to Roy's recording of the German [ç], and it sounds like something between _h_ and _sh_, maybe approaching Chinese [ɕ] (their IPA symbol are also similar)... but I don't think it's the same as how I pronounce the h in human.

And Roy, yes, I think you pronounce human with silent h . I also used to pronounce words like human and humid with a silent h (as most Italian also do), but one of my English teachers (who wasn't a native but Ucrainian) didn't understand me at first, then when he understood he taught to pronounce with h.

Many of you say I pronounce the H stronger than natives, is it possibile that I pronounce a [x] instead of ?


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## Roy776

Youngfun said:


> So, do you think I'm saying [çuman]?
> 
> Thanks everybody for comments about my recording.
> I listened to Roy's recording of the German [ç], and it sounds like something between _h_ and _sh_, maybe approaching Chinese [ɕ] (their IPA symbol are also similar)... but I don't think it's the same as how I pronounce the h in human.
> 
> And Roy, yes, I think you pronounce human with silent h . I also used to pronounce words like human and humid with a silent h (as most Italian also do), but one of my English teachers (who wasn't a native but Ucrainian) didn't understand me at first, then when he understood he taught to pronounce with h.
> 
> Many of you say I pronounce the H stronger than natives, is it possibile that I pronounce a [x] instead of ?




[ɕ] is the sound closest to the German [ç], yes  I know many pages that compare the Polish [ɕ] (ś) with German [ç]. It is not a real sh, but you're right in saying that its sound gets pretty close to one.

What you pronounced there is definitely not a real [ç], but it's also not a normal . And for a [x], the sound sounds way too soft. If you ask me, it could perhaps be this phoneme [ɦ], which I know from Dutch. Some people I know say it resembles the sound of a an [x], just softer.


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## merquiades

Youngfun said:


> So, do you think I'm saying [çuman]?
> 
> Thanks everybody for comments about my recording.
> I listened to Roy's recording of the German [ç], and it sounds like something between _h_ and _sh_, maybe approaching Chinese [ɕ] (their IPA symbol are also similar)... but I don't think it's the same as how I pronounce the h in human.
> 
> And Roy, yes, I think you pronounce human with silent h . I also used to pronounce words like human and humid with a silent h (as most Italian also do), but one of my English teachers (who wasn't a native but Ucrainian) didn't understand me at first, then when he understood he taught to pronounce with h.
> 
> Many of you say I pronounce the H stronger than natives, is it possibile that I pronounce a [x] instead of ?




It crossed my mind that you were pronouncing /x/, Francesco, but then I ruled it out.  It just sounds like you are trying really hard to give importance to the /h/, stress it and make it heard.  People who have h-less languages tend to do that.  They also have teachers at school that really push it.  I knew a Ukrainian lady who got angry at some anglophones for pronouncing the /h/ too soft.  She said she couldn't hear the "h's" and her teachers back in Ukraine had said it had to be a very important audible sound.  It's usually a weak sound, like an aspiration, in English.  I pronounce it in human but don't in words like have, him, her, he, here.


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## Dan2

merquiades said:


> /h/ ...  I pronounce it in human but don't in words like have, him, her, he, here.


I wonder how literally you mean this.  There are well-known weak forms involving some of these words, for ex.,
"I can see him" -> "I c'n see'im"
but do you really pronounce "over here" as "over ear", even in informal speech?  "Her book is on the table" as "Er book ..."?  Do you say, "I was talking to _'im_, not _'er_"?

Admittedly the h-words are contrastively stressed in the last example; but not in the first two. And more importantly, compare the words above to "hour" and "honor".  These words have no /h/ no matter how strongly stressed they are.  I'm concerned that when you say categorically, "I don't pronounce the /h/ in 'here', etc" you are suggesting to our non-NS readers that "here", etc are words like "hour".


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## Youngfun

Roy776 said:


> If you  ask me, it could perhaps be this phoneme [ɦ], which I know from Dutch.


Well, I don't think it is a [ɦ] either, which is a voiced glottal fricative, i.e. the voiced version of . I think the aspirated sounds should be mostly voiceless. At least, this [ɦ] doesn't sound aspirate to me.
 I know because this phoneme exists in my native Chinese dialect, distinct from /h/.
According to Wikipedia, in RP is an allophone of intervocalic /h/.



merquiades said:


> It crossed my mind that you were pronouncing /x/, Francesco, but then I ruled it out.  It just sounds like you are trying really hard to give importance to the /h/, stress it and make it heard.  People who have h-less languages tend to do that.  They also have teachers at school that really push it.  I knew a Ukrainian lady who got angry at some anglophones for pronouncing the /h/ too soft.  She said she couldn't hear the "h's" and her teachers back in Ukraine had said it had to be a very important audible sound.  It's usually a weak sound, like an aspiration, in English.  I pronounce it in human but don't in words like have, him, her, he, here.


Maybe you are right. In Italy a lot of people even pronounce "I'm" as /haim/ for hypercorrection.  
It's true that when speaking English I always pronouce a quite strong /h/ to make it heard.
But as I said above, /h/ is a sound that exists in my native dialect, and perhaps even being the same phoneme, it could be pronounced slightly differently.
Another difficulty is that in my native dialect, /h/ never appears in front of /i/ or /jV/, that makes the pronunciation quite difficult for me.

When I speak Mandarin Chinese, I probably pronounce a  which is the sound of my native dialect, instead of the Standard Mandarin sound /x/. I've notived that when saying some words, such as the famous _ni hao_ in casual speech, sometimes I would pronounce it as [niɦao~ni.ao]. I've noticed that my dad also makes a lot this reduction.
Probably it's unversal that the /h/ sounds gets weakened or disappears in, indeed, "weak forms".
But Northern people that speak more Standard Mandarin with /x/ sound never do these kinds of reduction.


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## berndf

A bit of background information:

In West-Germanic, [x] and [ç] were originally allophonic variants of /h/.  was the realization at the beginning of a syllable and [x] or [ ç] at the end of a syllable. This is why "gh" in English and "ch" in German and Scots (in Scots it exists of course but then represents a palatalized "k" /tʃ/) never occurs at the beginning of a word (except for foreign words).

Perception of initial /h/ as [ç] in in front of certain vowels and consonants seems to have existed already in old West-Germanic languages: Old-Franconian names are often spelled in Latin with initial _CH-_ where etymologically _H-_ would be expected. An example where /hi-/ or /hɪ-/ was obviously perceived as [çi-] of [çɪ-] is the name of the Merovingian king _Childeric_ (Inscription on his signet ring:_CHILDERICI REGIS_). The name contains the root _hild- or hilt- = fight_.

Syllable final /h/ was and and in many languages and dialects still is realized as [x] with variant [ç] depending on the preceding sound. Dutch & Swiss German never do this, Austrian and Bavarian only in after /i/, Standard German after /i:/, /ɪ/, /e/, /ɛ/, /ɛ:/ and all consonants, some dialects of Scots after /i/ or /ɪ/ (_it's a bricht moonlicht nicht, the nicht_).


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## berndf

Youngfun said:


> Well, I don't think it is a [ɦ] either, which is a voiced glottal fricative, i.e. the voiced version of . I think the aspirated sounds should be mostly voiceless. At least, this [ɦ] doesn't sound aspirate to me.


The /h/ in front of /i/ "blends" into the vowel which it doesn't do in front of /j/. You could describe this is a transition [çɦi-] with a very short and faint [ç] component. You can check this by saying heat and human and touching your larynx with thumb and index finger. You will feel the vibration caused by voicing more or less right away while you will notice a delay when saying _human_.


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## JuanEscritor

It does sound somewhat [x]-like, which makes sense, because without the [j], the sound might easily assimilate to the back vowel /u/ and so become [x] instead of [ç].

As for [ɦ], I think it's presence is unrelated to [ç] and [x]; it typically shows up intervocalically in English: _behind_ → ~[bəɦɑɪnd].


----------



## merquiades

Dan2 said:


> I wonder how literally you mean this.  There are well-known weak forms involving some of these words, for ex.,
> "I can see him" -> "I c'n see'im"
> but do you really pronounce "over here" as "over ear", even in informal speech?  "Her book is on the table" as "Er book ..."?  Do you say, "I was talking to _'im_, not _'er_"?
> 
> Admittedly the h-words are contrastively stressed in the last example; but not in the first two. And more importantly, compare the words above to "hour" and "honor".  These words have no /h/ no matter how strongly stressed they are.  I'm concerned that when you say categorically, "I don't pronounce the /h/ in 'here', etc" you are suggesting to our non-NS readers that "here", etc are words like "hour".



I was only thinking of cases when I don't pronounce "h" when I wrote the message. I didn't mean to sound categorical.  Perhaps I should have added "often". I'm certainly not advising dropping "h's" either. I don't advocate any pronunciation actually. I link words with "h" like the ones I suggested to the preceding word and don't pronounce it.  Even if I don't make the contraction I say "I 'ave a book"  probably not "over ear". If I'm stressing the "h" or it's at the beginning of the word I do usually pronounce it, so I wouldn't say "er book" or "ee is" or "ave a nice day".




			
				Youngfun said:
			
		

> Maybe you are right. In Italy a lot of people even pronounce "I'm" as /haim/ for hypercorrection.
> It's true that when speaking English I always pronouce a quite strong /h/ to make it heard.
> But as I said above, /h/ is a sound that exists in my native dialect, and perhaps even being the same phoneme, it could be pronounced slightly differently.
> Another difficulty is that in my native dialect, /h/ never appears in front of /i/ or /jV/, that makes the pronunciation quite difficult for me.
> 
> When I speak Mandarin Chinese, I probably pronounce a  which is the sound of my native dialect, instead of the Standard Mandarin sound /x/. I've notived that when saying some words, such as the famous ni hao in casual speech, sometimes I would pronounce it as [niɦao~ni.ao]. I've noticed that my dad also makes a lot this reduction.
> Probably it's unversal that the /h/ sounds gets weakened or disappears in, indeed, "weak forms".
> But Northern people that speak more Standard Mandarin with /x/ sound never do these kinds of reduction.




Yes, I hear those hypercorrections all the time in France.  "High hunderstand" is frequent.  High school teachers really stress the "h" so students fear not pronouncing something important but curiously enough these teachers forget to teach distinguishing "it, eat" or "seat, sit, set", the vowel of "look as opposed to Luke" or other things like linking words together, question/declaration intonation, stressed-time rhythm etc.  For me "think versus sink" is also important.  In my list of do's and don't's "h" is at the bottom of the priorities.

I hear a Chinese class going on from afar every day.  The teacher is from Beijing.  I noticed there were lots of /x/ and /r/ sounds.  She says a lot of "Woah sure".


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## Youngfun

berndf said:


> The /h/ in front of /i/ "blends" into the vowel which it doesn't do in front of /j/. You could describe this is a transition [çɦi-] with a very short and faint [ç] component. You can check this by saying heat and human and touching your larynx with thumb and index finger. You will feel the vibration caused by voicing more or less right away while you will notice a delay when saying _human_.


When I try to say hhhhhhhhh, I don't feel any vibration, but when I say /hi/ or /hju/ I can feel a little.



merquiades said:


> Yes, I hear those hypercorrections all the time in France.  "High hunderstand" is frequent.  High school teachers really stress the "h" so students fear not pronouncing something important but curiously enough these teachers forget to teach distinguishing "it, eat" or "seat, sit, set", the vowel of "look as opposed to Luke" or other things like linking words together, question/declaration intonation, stressed-time rhythm etc.  For me "think versus sink" is also important.  In my list of do's and don't's "h" is at the bottom of the priorities.


I learnt none of the things you said at school, but as self-taught, with a lot of conversation and listenings, and English courses outside school more focused on oral practice.
It's just strange that "th" becomes s/z in some countries like China, France and Germany, but t/d in others like Italy.
What seems strange to most people, is that actually taking some English courses in China helped me improve my pronuciation, not only my Italian accent got milder (maybe acquired a light Chinese accent?), but I would ask myself: why I pronounce the th as "t", but they pronounce it as "s"? Then I learned that the proper pronounciation of th is neither of two, but like something between "s" and "t".
In China they teach us to pronounce a "s" but with the tongue out of the teeth.
Recently I saw a research that says that listening to various foreign accents of English helps to improve the pronunciation, from my experience I can say it's true.



merquiades said:


> I hear a Chinese class going on from afar every day.  The teacher is from Beijing.  I noticed there were lots of /x/ and /r/ sounds.  She says a lot of "Woah sure".


"Woah sure" should be 我是 /wɔ ʂɨ˞ / = I am. The r's you hear should be [ɻ~ʐ], especially in syllable coda it's used the [ɻ] that blends together with the vowel, which sounds like a Texan r.
My pronunciation, influenced by my native Southern dialect, should use  instead of /x/, and [z] instead of the initial r's, and weaker (if not at all) "r-colouring".


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## berndf

*Moderator note: Please keep focused on the topic. We are talking about /h/ here.*


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## JuanEscritor

There has been a lot made about the fact that what has been described as [ç] in English is not equivalent to the /ç/ sound in other languages that use it phonemically.  I think this is something of a non-issue--given the complete lack of phonemic palatal fricatives in English, a voiced palatal approximant raised and devoiced is close enough to be considered English's version of [ç], regardless of how much this sound may differ from a similar sound in other languages.

On top of this, the /h/ in _heat_ may be realized lower than the /h/ in _hue_, but it is still closer to [ç] than it is to ; in fact, of the sounds for which the IPA has distinct symbols I cannot think of a single sound to which the /h/ in _heat _is more similar than [ç].

I think the point of all this is that English /h/ changes in front of high vowels and approximants--taking on the features of the sound it precedes.  The same thing that happens in front of /i/ and /j/ happens in front of /u/ and /w/: /hu/ → ~[xuː], /hwɪʧ/ → ~[ʍɪʧ].  We might be fooled by the fact that there are different symbols involved here, but that is an artifact of the IPA's preferential attention given to European languages, especially English.  Much like we have a symbol showing the realized combination /hw/, we could have a symbol showing the realized combination /hj/; we could also have a separate symbol showing the initial sound of _heat_ and _hoot_ as being something in between an approximant and fricative.

The situation looks messy when we try to categorize all the sounds involved using just the symbols of the IPA; it would be much more straight-forward to think of the processes in terms of the feature changes taking place:

[+glottal +fricative -voice] + [+glide +voice] → [+'fricative glide' -voice]

This covers the processes in words with /hj/ and /hw/ combinations.  Similarly for our high vowels:

[+glottal +fricative -voice] + [+vowel +high] → [+'fricative high vowel' -voice]

This, I believe, more accurately covers the processes involved while avoiding the difficulties of trying to understand everything in terms of what sounds the creators of the IPA thought important-enough to devote separate symbols to.

JE


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## berndf

JuanEscritor said:


> There has been a lot made about the fact that what has been described as [ç] in English is not equivalent to the /ç/ sound in other languages that use it phonemically.  I think this is something of a non-issue--given the complete lack of phonemic palatal fricatives in English, a *voiced palatal approximant raised and devoiced* is close enough to be considered English's version of [ç], regardless of how much this sound may differ from a similar sound in other languages.


I always agreed with that, i.e.[ç] in _human_. The disagreement was about _heat_.



JuanEscritor said:


> The same thing that happens in front of /i/ and /j/ happens in front of /u/ and /w/: /hu/ → ~[xuː]


It seems we have a fundamental problem here to agreeing what actually constitutes an . The sound you hear in who is still compatible with the general definition, especially taking into account this:
_It may have a glottal place of articulation. However, it may have no fricative articulation, in which case the term 'glottal' only refers to the nature of its phonation, and does not describe the location of the stricture nor the turbulence._

By postulating a [ç] in_ heat _and a [x] in_ who _you imply the slightest hint of a palatal constriction constitutes already a [ç] and the slightest hint of a velar constriction a [x]. And I reject that view.



JuanEscritor said:


> , /hwɪʧ/ → ~[ʍɪʧ].


The word _which _never ever in the history of English contained an /h/. /ʍ/ has always been a phoneme in its own right. In most modern varieties, /ʍ/ and /w/ are merged, i.e. _witch _and _which_ sound the same. But that is a different story.


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## merquiades

JuanEscritor said:


> There has been a lot made about the fact that what has been described as [ç] in English is not equivalent to the /ç/ sound in other languages that use it phonemically.  I think this is something of a non-issue--given the complete lack of phonemic palatal fricatives in English, a voiced palatal approximant raised and devoiced is close enough to be considered English's version of [ç], regardless of how much this sound may differ from a similar sound in other languages.
> 
> On top of this, the /h/ in _heat_ may be realized lower than the /h/ in _hue_, but it is still closer to [ç] than it is to ; in fact, of the sounds for which the IPA has distinct symbols I cannot think of a single sound to which the /h/ in _heat _is more similar than [ç].
> 
> I think the point of all this is that English /h/ changes in front of high vowels and approximants--taking on the features of the sound it precedes.  The same thing that happens in front of /i/ and /j/ happens in front of /u/ and /w/: /hu/ → ~[xuː], /hwɪʧ/ → ~[ʍɪʧ].  We might be fooled by the fact that there are different symbols involved here, but that is an artifact of the IPA's preferential attention given to European languages, especially English.  Much like we have a symbol showing the realized combination /hw/, we could have a symbol showing the realized combination /hj/; we could also have a separate symbol showing the initial sound of _heat_ and _hoot_ as being something in between an approximant and fricative.
> 
> The situation looks messy when we try to categorize all the sounds involved using just the symbols of the IPA; it would be much more straight-forward to think of the processes in terms of the feature changes taking place:
> 
> [+glottal +fricative -voice] + [+glide +voice] → [+'fricative glide' -voice]
> 
> This covers the processes in words with /hj/ and /hw/ combinations.  Similarly for our high vowels:
> 
> [+glottal +fricative -voice] + [+vowel +high] → [+'fricative high vowel' -voice]
> 
> This, I believe, more accurately covers the processes involved while avoiding the difficulties of trying to understand everything in terms of what sounds the creators of the IPA thought important-enough to devote separate symbols to.
> 
> JE




I suppose to summarize your theory, you believe there is a roaming /h/ in English that moves from /x/ to /ç/ to /h/ with possible sounds in the middle depending on what vowel sound follows it.   
I'm a bit skeptical as I think I pronounce a weak /h/ wherever, but perhaps there is some movement, but not much...  Who as /xu:/ definitely not.
Do you really make this difference between "which" and "witch"?


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## berndf

merquiades said:


> Do you really make this difference between "which" and "witch"?


About 15% of English native speakers in the US and Canada maintain the distinction between /w/ and /ʍ/. In England and Wales, the distinction has completely disappeared. If it occurs, it is usually hyper-correct because children learn(ed?) in school that it "ought" to sound differently. In Scottish accents, the difference is usually maintained.



merquiades said:


> I suppose to summarize your theory, you believe there is a roaming /h/  in English that moves from /x/ to /ç/ to /h/ with possible sounds in the  middle depending on what vowel sound follows it.
> I'm a bit skeptical as I think I pronounce a weak /h/ wherever, but  perhaps there is some movement, but not much...  Who as /xu:/ definitely  not.


Your comment reminds me of the characterization of /h/ as an "unvoiced vowel" you sometimes hear. This might help to explain why the the /h/ is human is [ç] bit  in _heat_ and _who_: While the [ç] in human is the unvoiced counterpart of [j], the  in heat is the unvoiced counterpart of _ and the  in who is the unvoiced counterpart of  and not [x] which is the unvoiced counterpart of [ɣ]. _


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## merquiades

berndf said:


> About 15% of English native speakers in the US and Canada maintain the distinction between /w/ and /ʍ/. In England and Wales, the distinction has completely disappeared. If it occurs, it is usually hyper-correct because children learn(ed?) in school that it "ought" to sound differently. In Scottish accents, the difference is usually maintained.
> 
> Your comment reminds me of the characterization of /h/ as an "unvoiced vowel" you sometimes hear. This might help to explain why the the /h/ is human is [ç] bit  in _heat_ and _who_: While the [ç] in human is the unvoiced counterpart of [j], the  in heat is the unvoiced counterpart of _ and the  in who is the unvoiced counterpart of  and not [x] which is the unvoiced counterpart of [ɣ]. _


_

An unvoiced vowel, well there still is aspiration which would make it a consonant.  This discussion reminds me a bit of the n and m in Spanish which change to /m/, /n/ /ɳ/ /ɲ/ /ŋ/  depending on the consonant that follows.  But that's another thread.

I remember a nursery rhyme.  "If two witches watch two watches, which witch would watch which watch?"  so I don't think I or my teachers ever made that distinction. _


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## JuanEscritor

berndf said:


> By postulating a [ç] in_ heat _and a [x] in_ who _you imply the slightest hint of a palatal constriction constitutes already a [ç] and the slightest hint of a velar constriction a [x]. And I reject that view.


That has not been an intended implication at all; the sounds are [ç]-like and [x]-like in the sense that they involve similar oral constrictions; but the sounds are not exactly [ç] and [x], nor are the constrictions as complete as in [ç] and [x].



> The word _which _never ever in the history of English contained an /h/.


In that case, neither has the word _human_—absolutely no native speaker of English pronounces this word with an .  



> /ʍ/ has always been a phoneme in its own right.


Then I think we could argue phonemicity of /çj/ as well, since it creates minimal pairs with /j/ in words such as _hue_, _you_.  The same process is involved for turning /w/ into [ʍ] as for turning /j/ into [çj] (i.e., devoicing combined with a slight raising of the tongue to create a stricture), and so if /ʍ/ is phonemic there is no excuse for /çj/ not to be as well.

Or, instead of adding phonemes to the English language as it pleases us, we can simply accept that English has an allophonic process that melds the properties of /h/ with following high vowels and glides.  I think a smaller phonemic inventory with a few rules is preferable, especially when the rules can be applied to whole sound classes and involve all the same variations.

Anyway, I might be going slightly off topic...

JE


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## berndf

I add nothing. It has been an independent phoneme at least for the last 6000 years. The Romans spelt it "qu" as in "quo", In Greek it became "t" or "p" as in "to" (Latin "quo") or "hippos" (Latin "equus") and the English reflex was spelled "hw" in Old English and "wh" since Middle English.


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## berndf

merquiades said:


> An unvoiced vowel, well there still is aspiration which would make it a consonant.


"Aspiration" and "unvoiced vowel" pretty much express the same idea. If you describe [ha] as an "unvoiced a" followed by a "voiced a" or as an [a] with aspiration is the same thing.





merquiades said:


> I remember a nursery rhyme.  "If two witches watch two watches, which witch would watch which watch?"  so I don't think I or my teachers ever made that distinction.


These things are very well researched and the percentage I gave isn't my invention. Look for "wine-whine merger" in any textbook.


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## merquiades

berndf said:


> "Aspiration" and "unvoiced vowel" pretty much express the same idea. If you describe [ha] as an "unvoiced a" followed by a "voiced a" or as an [a] with aspiration is the same thing.These things are very well researched and the percentage I gave isn't my invention. Look for "wine-whine merger" in any textbook....



But I'm not doubting what you say in any way, Berndf .  I know very well these two phonemes existed historically and are still distinguished in certain areas.  I just meant to say they don't exist in my environment.  Just saw the following: 





			
				Berndf said:
			
		

> If it occurs, it is usually hyper-correct because children learn(ed?) in school that it "ought" to sound differently


 That didn't occur in my school.


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## berndf

merquiades said:


> That didn't occur in my school.


If you re-read my post you will notice that this comment was about England and Wales where the wine-whine merger is complete and any distinction of the two is a hyper-correction.Did you attend school in England or Wales?


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## JuanEscritor

berndf said:


> I add nothing. It has been an independent phoneme at least for the last 6000 years. The Romans spelt it "qu" as in "quo", In Greek it became "t" or "p" as in "to" (Latin "quo") or "hippos" (Latin "equus") and the English reflex was spelled "hw" in Old English and "wh" since Middle English.


Sources are not unanimously behind this point of view.  Wikipedia describes it as a realization of phonemic /hw/.  It's spelling has also not been as consistent as you suppose, as ME saw spellings such as <quhat> and <quile>.1  I actually think there is a good case for analyzing [ʍ] as the realization of the separate phonemes /h/ and /w/:


It systematizes word-initial /h/ variations (such as PDE [ç] and earlier [ɹ̥]) as all being phonemically /h/ + another consonant. 
It avoids postulating additional phonemes for the language which cannot be found occurring in any other parts of words other than their beginnings (I can't think of another English phoneme restricted to only occurring morpheme initially—including /h/, which otherwise occurs initially and medially—, though many have constraints on how they can be paired in particular locations). 
It accounts for why some non-h-dropping dialects are losing the [ç] sound in words such as _human_, making them [juːmn̩]—the phonotactic constrains on /h/ in these dialects are becoming so strict that it is not allowed to occur in any initial clusters, effectively completing a process English has been undergoing for centuries, which is the removal of /h/ from initial consonant clusters (/hr/, /hl/, /hn/, and /hw/ already being lost everywhere else).2 
I think you _might _be able to make a case for /ʍ/ as a separate phoneme, but I do not think that its status as such is as uncontroversial as you make it out to be.  Your contributions are always immensely insightful, but I think you are jumping the gun on wanting to label [ʍ] a distinct phoneme in English; in fact, I have not come across a single expert source claiming that it is.

JE
__________
1 Millward (1996, p. 61)
2 Phonological History of WH. See also a discussion on the matter here: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070114195142AAokhjk
__________
Millward, C.M. (1996) _A Biography of the English Langauge_, 2nd ed. Massachusetts: Thomsom Wadsworth.


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## berndf

JuanEscritor said:


> Sources are not unanimously behind this point of view. Wikipedia describes it as a realization of phonemic /hw/.


I really don't understand where you got this idea from. Certainly not from the article you quoted.


JuanEscritor said:


> as ME saw spellings such as <quhat> and <quile>.1


In ME all kind of variants can be found. All statements about how a word was written in ME is understood to be a simplification. Besides, the multitude of spelling is a good indicator it wasn't a straight sequence of /h/+/w/.


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## JuanEscritor

A reply in really poor taste, berndf.  My sources were very clear and the audience can read them for itself and decide whose point of view they best support.

JE


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## berndf

JuanEscritor said:


> A reply in really poor taste, berndf.  My  sources were very clear and the audience can read them for itself and  decide whose point of view they best support.


Sorry, my mistake. I now see what you were referring to.


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## Youngfun

What's the difference between [ʍ] and [hw]? I can't hear any.
I've heard that this sound is still used in theaters in Britain, and I also heard it in a tape teaching English to foreigners.


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## JuanEscritor

Youngfun said:


> What's the difference between [ʍ] and [hw]? I can't hear any.
> I've heard that this sound is still used in theaters in Britain, and I also heard it in a tape teaching English to foreigners.


The difference is that the first is one sound and the second is two sounds.  I do not believe any English speakers produce [hw]; those who make a distinction between <wh> and <w> do so on the basis of the voicing of a single sound (where the former is a voiceless [ʍ] and the latter a voiced [w]).

The disagreement over *ʍ *and *hw *was regarding which of these represent the _phonemic_ situation of the realized [ʍ].  I don't think anyone thinks that there are English speakers who produce [hw] for <wh>.

JE


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## Dan2

JuanEscritor said:


> the sounds (of "human" and "who") are [ç]-like and [x]-like in the sense that they  involve similar oral constrictions; but the sounds are not exactly [ç]  and [x], nor are the constrictions as complete as in [ç] and [x].


I have a suggestion as to how to look at this.  We can distinguish three levels of constriction (between tongue and roof of mouth) for non-vowels sounds; from most to least extreme:
- total stoppage, producing a "stop" consonant
- tongue close enough that passing air produces distinct turbulence noise, giving a fricative consonant
- tongue not close enough for frication, resulting in a "glide" or "approximant"
For each of the above non-vowel sound types, voicing can be present or not. In the palatal place of articulation, in the same order as above, with unvoiced sound first, we have
- [c], [ɟ] (don't normally occur in English)
- [ç], [ʝ] (the first is the German "ich-Laut")
- unvoiced[j], [j] (the second is the Eng 'y' of "yes"; I don't trust the relevant text editors with an IPA representation of the first)

In the case of "human", spelling and etymology would lead us to expect [hju...], but we perceive that we are not pronouncing an  followed by a [j].

Let's step back for a moment and consider Bernd's observation that in the case of English (or other Germanic language) /h/ followed by any vowel V, the "" can be viewed as a voiceless vowel having the same tongue position as V. Accepting this analysis, we have "head" as unvoiced[ɛ] transitioning into [ɛ] transitioning into [d].

Under the view that the glides (approximants) [j] and [w] are simply non-syllable-forming equivalents of the vowels _ and , we'd expect, analogously to "head" above, that /hju.../ would be realized as unvoiced-[j], transitioning into (voiced) [j] transitioning into .

This approach does not predict a [ç].  I actually see that as an advantage, since "human" produced with a true German ich-Laut seems somewhat "off" to me, suggestive (to the English speaker not familiar with German) of the name "Shuman".  So I'm happy with the representation of the start of "hue", "human", etc. as "unvoiced-[j] transitioning into (voiced) [j]".  However we know that there is always variation at the articulatory level, and I can accept that some speakers, sometimes, will produce something closer to a true [ç].

Returning to an earlier theme of this thread, when I listen to JE's "heat" and the same word as recorded by other English speakers, and compare that to Bernd's [çit], all I can say is that it strikes me as very wrongheaded to suggest that English "heat" contains [ç].  On the other hand, "unvoiced  transitioning into " seems to describe most instances perfectly.



JuanEscritor said:



			I actually think there is a good case for analyzing [ʍ] as the realization of the separate phonemes /h/ and /w/:
		
Click to expand...

I'm writing not to argue one way or the other, but to add some comments to your points.


JuanEscritor said:



			It systematizes word-initial /h/ variations (such as PDE [ç] and earlier [ɹ̥]) as all being phonemically /h/ + another consonant.
		
Click to expand...

(I assume "PDE" is "present-day English".)  I don't think sounds that no longer occur in English are relevant to how you and I analyzed into phonemes the sounds we heard while learning English.


JuanEscritor said:



			It avoids postulating additional phonemes for the language   which cannot be found occurring in any other parts of words other than   their beginnings (I can't think of another English phoneme restricted  to  only occurring morpheme initially—including /h/, which otherwise  occurs  initially and medially—, though many have constraints on how  they can  be paired in particular locations).
		
Click to expand...

You say that /h/ can occur medially.  What are some examples?  I think we should exclude words like "ahead" (where "head" is clearly a morpheme) and maybe also non-English-derived place names.  Or, if you do accept "ahead" as having a medial /h/, then certainly "overwhelming" and some place names have medial /ʍ/.  In either case, a phoneme /ʍ/ would not differ from /h/ in this regard.



Youngfun said:



			What's the difference between [ʍ] and [hw]? I can't hear any.
		
Click to expand...

I basically agree with JE's response to this._


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## JuanEscritor

Dan2 said:


> I have a suggestion as to how to look at this.  We can distinguish three levels of constriction (between tongue and roof of mouth) for non-vowels sounds; from most to least extreme:
> - total stoppage, producing a "stop" consonant
> - tongue close enough that passing air produces distinct turbulence noise, giving a fricative consonant
> - tongue not close enough for frication, resulting in a "glide" or "approximant"
> For each of the above non-vowel sound types, voicing can be present or not. In the palatal place of articulation, in the same order as above, with unvoiced sound first, we have
> - [c], [ɟ] (don't normally occur in English)
> - [ç], [ʝ] (the first is the German "ich-Laut")
> - unvoiced[j], [j] (the second is the Eng 'y' of "yes"; I don't trust the relevant text editors with an IPA representation of the first)


I have several times mentioned that the sounds involved are not necessarily fully [ç]-like or [x]-like, but are the post-h sounds turned voiceless fricatives.  I would say this typically requires there to be some raising, but that the raising may not always be complete.  



> In the case of "human", spelling and etymology would lead us to expect [hju...], but we perceive that we are not pronouncing an  followed by a [j].
> 
> Let's step back for a moment and consider Bernd's observation that in the case of English (or other Germanic language) /h/ followed by any vowel V, the "" can be viewed as a voiceless vowel having the same tongue position as V. Accepting this analysis, we have "head" as unvoiced[ɛ] transitioning into [ɛ] transitioning into [d].
> 
> Under the view that the glides (approximants) [j] and [w] are simply non-syllable-forming equivalents of the vowels _ and , we'd expect, analogously to "head" above, that /hju.../ would be realized as unvoiced-[j], transitioning into (voiced) [j] transitioning into .
> 
> This approach does not predict a [ç].  I actually see that as an advantage, since "human" produced with a true German ich-Laut seems somewhat "off" to me, suggestive (to the English speaker not familiar with German) of the name "Shuman".  So I'm happy with the representation of the start of "hue", "human", etc. as "unvoiced-[j] transitioning into (voiced) [j]".  However we know that there is always variation at the articulatory level, and I can accept that some speakers, sometimes, will produce something closer to a true [ç].
> 
> Returning to an earlier theme of this thread, when I listen to JE's "heat" and the same word as recorded by other English speakers, and compare that to Bernd's [çit], all I can say is that it strikes me as very wrongheaded to suggest that English "heat" contains [ç].  On the other hand, "unvoiced  transitioning into " seems to describe most instances perfectly._


_
I think you are missing something of the point.  The phonetic features of /h/ are voiceless glottal fricative; thus they make no reference to the state of the oral cavity, which can be formed for any vowel without affecting the realization of /h/, though in other cases the nature of /h/ may be affected.

In head the friction occurs *glottaly*, and this is all that is needed for us to categorize the realized /h/ as an ' proper'.  However, in human the friction occurs *palatally*, and this is what we are talking about when we talk about /h/ undergoing changes in front of certain vowels and semi-vowels.

My heat does not have [ç] in it, but it also does not have .




			(I assume "PDE" is "present-day English".)  I don't think sounds that no longer occur in English are relevant to how you and I analyzed into phonemes the sounds we heard while learning English.
		
Click to expand...

My point was that phonemic /hw/ makes sense as part of an h-cluster class with /hj/ and the other defunct h-clusters of English (/hr/, /hl/, /hn/) which all had special phonetic realizations.  On the other hand, /ʍ/ is somewhat out of place unless we postulate the voiceless [j] of human as being a distinct phoneme.




			You say that /h/ can occur medially.  What are some examples?  I think we should exclude words like "ahead" (where "head" is clearly a morpheme) and maybe also non-English-derived place names.  Or, if you do accept "ahead" as having a medial /h/, then certainly "overwhelming" and some place names have medial /ʍ/.  In either case, a phoneme /ʍ/ would not differ from /h/ in this regard.
		
Click to expand...

I agree that ahead and overwhelm cannot be included.  But I was thinking of words like vehicle. (ABE: This might be a bad example, perhaps something like mahogany or mayhem will be better as more universally stable examples.)

JE  _


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## berndf

Dan2 said:


> Under the view that the glides (approximants) [j] and [w] are simply non-syllable-forming equivalents of the vowels _ and _


_I don't think, this view is appropriate for English; it may be for off-glides but not for onsets. Otherwise ye and he should be very difficult to distinguish and likewise yest and east, if east is pronounce without a glottal stop. This contrasts with languages like in some variants of Modern Hebrew where word-initial /ji-/ and /?i-/ are indistinguishable. I would be very surprised, if you could identify the initial /j-/ in Israel like you can identify it in yeast. At least I can't._


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## berndf

JuanEscritor said:


> In _head_ the friction occurs *glottaly*, and this is all that is needed for us to categorize the realized /h/ as an ' proper'.  However, in _human_ the friction occurs *palatally*, and this is what we are talking about when we talk about /h/ undergoing changes in front of certain vowels and semi-vowels.


This is core of the disagreement: Does an  have to be a glottal fricative to be a "propper" one. IPA leaves it open whether  should be classified as a fricative or as an approximant and in most people's pronunciation of _heat_ (yours is admittedly a bit on the edge) I hear enough of a globalization to describe it as glottal approximant. At any rate, there is no more and no less of a glottalization  is _heat _as there is is _hat _or _hot_. So, if you think there is no glottalization in _heat_ then the characterization of English /h/ as glottal should be given up all together.


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## JuanEscritor

berndf said:


> JuanEscritor said:
> 
> 
> 
> In _head_ the friction occurs *glottaly*, and this is all that is needed for us to categorize the realized /h/ as an ' proper'.  However, in _human_ the friction occurs *palatally*, and this is what we are talking about when we talk about /h/ undergoing changes in front of certain vowels and semi-vowels.
> 
> 
> 
> This is core of the disagreement: Does an  have to be a glottal fricative to be a "propper" one. IPA leaves it open whether  should be classified as a fricative or as an approximant and in most people's pronunciation of _heat_ (yours is admittedly a bit on the edge) I hear enough of a globalization to describe it as glottal approximant. At any rate, there is no more and no less of a glottalization  is _heat _as there is is _hat _or _hot_. So, if you think there is no glottalization in _heat_ then the characterization of English /h/ as glottal should be given up all together.
Click to expand...

There are clearly different realizations of /h/ in _human_ and in _hot_.  Whether we call one proper or the other is really of little importance in describing the way English /h/ behaves in certain environments.  

Does the /h/ not behave predictably different in your opinion depending on where it is?

JE


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## berndf

The disagreement was only about "heat" vs. "hot". It has never been disputed that "human" belongs into a different category because in "human" /h/ precedes a consonant (/j/) and not a vowel.


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## JuanEscritor

berndf said:


> The disagreement was only about "heat" vs. "hot". It has never been disputed that "human" belongs into a different category because in "human" /h/ precedes a consonant (/j/) and not a vowel.


My apologies; there have been so many disagreements that I have somewhat lost track of them all.

I think /j/ is distinguished from /i/ only in that it is higher; likewise for /w/ compared to /u/.  However, /i/ and /u/ are still rather high and may very well trigger similar variations of /h/--they certainly do in my speech and the speech of everyone I know.

We know that _heat_ and _hot_ have different /h/s in them and that the /h/ in _heat_ is different from the /h/ in _hot_ in being closer to the /h/ in _human_.  This is why I proposed a similar process several posts back to describe the variations we were seeing.

JE


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## Dan2

berndf said:


> Dan2 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Under the view that the glides (approximants) [j]   and [w] are simply non-syllable-forming equivalents of the vowels _   and _
> 
> 
> 
> _I don't think, this view is appropriate for English; it may be for off-glides but not for onsets. Otherwise ye and he should be very difficult to distinguish and likewise yest and east, if east is pronounce without a glottal stop._
Click to expand...

_
I don't see why ye and he would be difficult to distinguish.  ye is voiced thruout, while he starts unvoiced; that's very distinctive.  But yeast vs east is a more interesting case.  I think the difference is largely in the amplitude contour, with yeast having a relatively slow rise to full vowel amplitude, but without a lot of spectral change during that period of amplitude growth.


berndf said:



			This contrasts with languages like in  some variants of Modern Hebrew where word-initial /ji-/ and /?i-/ are  indistinguishable. I would be very surprised, if you could identify the  initial /j-/ in Israel like you can identify it in yeast. At least I can't.
		
Click to expand...

I assume you mean Israel as spoken in Hebrew, since in English the word simply starts with .  I don't know what the facts are in Hebrew, but if Hebrew words starting with /ji-/ and /i-/ phonemically are indistinguishable at the phonetic level, then you're talking about phonology, while I, in my previous thread, was talking about phonetics.

But to return to the main point: Whether or not I exaggerated the similarity of [j] and  is not really important.  My claim is simply that words like "human" and "huge" start with an unvoiced [j] transitioning into a voiced [j], and during the unvoiced portion we have both frication noise (from the glottis) and spectral shaping typical of palatals (from the tongue shape and placement), but typically no true palatal fricative, as the term applies to languages like German._


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## berndf

JuanEscritor said:


> My apologies; there have been so many disagreements that I have somewhat lost track of them all.


Then it is probably time for me to re-cap my position:   
- The most suitable characterization of  in the context of English, and for all Germanic languages for that matter, is as an unvoiced vowel of unspecified height and backness. Height and backness assimilated to the subsequent vowel.
- Phonemic /h/ assimilated to a subsequent consonant morphs to something else, /hj/ is realized [çj].
- I don't agree with the the analysis of [ʍ] as a surface structure realization of the phonemic sequence /h/+/w/. In diachronic analysis this doesn't need any justification, I hope; in synchronic analysis because after what has been said before, I think we all agree, that  the to-be-expected realization of /h/+/w/ would be [ʍw] and not [ʍ].


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## berndf

Dan2 said:


> My claim is simply that words like "human" and "huge" start with an unvoiced [j] transitioning into a voiced [j]


Yes, absolutely; we in total agreement on this. If would actually also prefer ['j̊ju.mən] over [çju.mən] as I hear the initial voiceless consonant as an approximant and not as a fricative. But I didn't raise the matter because I considered the difference between [ç] and [j̊] as of minor importance in the context of our discussion and distracting for the issue _voiceless vowel_ vs. _voiceless consonant_.


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## Dan2

JuanEscritor said:


> I have several times mentioned that the   sounds involved are not necessarily fully [ç]-like or [x]-like, but are   the post-h sounds turned voiceless fricatives.


OK, but your claim at the beginning of the thread that you had [ç] in   "heat" really grabbed my attention, and as late as post #41 you took the   position that your /h/ in "heat" was closer to [ç] than to anything else.  I disagree with that. In fact, even in the quote   immediately above you seem to be saying that words like "heat" have a   beyond-the-glottis fricative; I don't think that's typically true.  See below.


JuanEscritor said:


> I think you are missing something of the   point.  The phonetic features  of /h/ are voiceless glottal fricative;   thus they make no reference to  the state of the oral cavity, which _can _be   formed for any vowel without affecting the realization of /h/, though   in other cases the nature of /h/ may be affected.


I think I'm _disagreeing _with the point rather than missing it.  Let me take a different tack.

We can communicate quite well when we whisper, even tho all sounds are   unvoiced.  In particular whispered vowels are identifiable.  This is   really not surprising: in place of voiced speech's periodic pulses   exiting the glottis and creating a vowel spectrum with a formant pattern determined by the shape of the oral cavity,   in whispered vowels we have glottal _noise _excitation exciting the same   oral cavity and producing the same formant structure (but with a   continuous rather than line spectrum).

So a whispered _, for example, is noise-like, shows palatal spectral   characteristics (because tongue position is similar to that for the   palatals), but is NOT a palatal fricative.  Now a whispered  is just a   voiceless , and a voiceless  transitioning into a voiced  is   what I suggested for "heat" in my previous post.

Summarizing: like Bernd, I'm taking the view that in /hV/ the /h/ is a   voiceless version of /V/; under discussion is the case where /V/ is /i/.    Frication noise at the glottis during the /h/ (= voiceless )   excites the tract and creates a spectrum typical of palatal sounds.  The   crucial point is that we can have frication noise and palatal   spectral-shaping without having a palatal fricative, i.e., without [ç].    Thus it seems to me that the correct transcription of "heat" is [hi:t] (with the above interpretation of ) or "[unvoiced i]   followed by [i:t]".  We may think we hear/produce a palatal fricative but this is because there IS frication (from the glottis), this frication noise DOES have a palatal-like spectral shape (because of the tongue position for ), and we DO sense a palatal-like position of the tongue (again because of the ); but all this does NOT mean there is a true palatal fricative of the kind typified by the German ich-Laut, or any above-the-glottis fricative at all.


JuanEscritor said:



			In head the friction occurs *glottaly*, and this is all that is needed for us to categorize the realized /h/ as an ' proper'.  However, in human the friction occurs *palatally*,

Click to expand...


My claim is that in ALL cases of /h/ the friction occurs glottally, but   that when the /h/ is followed by a palatal vowel or glide/approximant,   the resulting spectrum is reminiscent of (not identical to) a palatal   fricative, but no palatal fricative is typically present.
------


JuanEscritor said:



			I agree that ahead and overwhelm cannot be included.  But I was thinking of words like vehicle. (ABE: This might be a bad example, perhaps something like mahogany or mayhem will be better as more universally stable examples.)
		
Click to expand...

mahogany and mayhem are good examples.  There are some place names like "Elwha River" that have medial "wh", but I can't think of any English words   with true medial "wh".  But "wh" is pretty rare in English; hypothetical mawhogany sounds like it COULD be a word of English (no stranger than mahogany); one has to decide   whether the actual gap is accidental or significant. (Again, I don't   know whether "wh" should be considered a phoneme (in the relevant   dialects) and am not arguing against your analysis.)  _


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## JuanEscritor

Dan2 said:


> OK, but your claim at the beginning of the thread that you had [ç] in   "heat" really grabbed my attention, and as late as post #41 you took the   position that your /h/ in "heat" was closer to [ç] than to anything else.  I disagree with that. In fact, even in the quote   immediately above you seem to be saying that words like "heat" have a   beyond-the-glottis fricative; I don't think that's typically true.  See below.



Do you hear a difference between the /h/ of _heat_ and the /h/ of _hot_ in my recordings?



> So a whispered _, for example, is noise-like, shows palatal spectral   characteristics (because tongue position is similar to that for the   palatals), but is NOT a palatal fricative.  Now a whispered  is just a   voiceless , and a voiceless  transitioning into a voiced  is   what I suggested for "heat" in my previous post._


_

But a whispered /i/ is not the sound present at the beginning of heat in my recordings.  I can record a whispered /i/ if you'd like; the difference is very clear.




			Summarizing: like Bernd, I'm taking the view that in /hV/ the /h/ is a   voiceless version of /V/; under discussion is the case where /V/ is /i/.    Frication noise at the glottis during the /h/ (= voiceless )   excites the tract and creates a spectrum typical of palatal sounds.  The   crucial point is that we can have frication noise and palatal   spectral-shaping without having a palatal fricative, i.e., without [ç].    Thus it seems to me that the correct transcription of "heat" is [hi:t] (with the above interpretation of ) or "[unvoiced i]   followed by [i:t]".  We may think we hear/produce a palatal fricative but this is because there IS frication (from the glottis), this frication noise DOES have a palatal-like spectral shape (because of the tongue position for ), and we DO sense a palatal-like position of the tongue (again because of the ); but all this does NOT mean there is a true palatal fricative of the kind typified by the German ich-Laut, or any above-the-glottis fricative at all. 

Click to expand...



Variation of /h/ in the vicinity of high vowels is an established feature of older varieties of English and the Germanic languages spoken by the settlers of the upper Midwest whose languages influenced the English they would pass to future generations.

Also, it isn't just a matter of hearing the friction; you can feel it.  It is clearly taking place at the palate in a word such as heat and somewhere rear of the palate in a word such as hot. And there is nothing to the claim that my word heat starts with a voiceless /i/; the two sounds are as distinct as day and night.

(ABE: I also want to point out for the record that whispered speech is not the same as voiceless speech; for example, word-final /t/ and /d/ are still clearly distinguished in whispered English despite both being pronounced without voicing.)

JE _


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## JuanEscritor

berndf said:


> Then it is probably time for me to re-cap my position:
> - The most suitable characterization of  in the context of English, and for all Germanic languages for that matter, is as an unvoiced vowel of unspecified height and backness. Height and backness assimilated to the subsequent vowel.


But it is not just voiceless, it is fricative, and where the friction occurs is the point of contention in this thread.  It is only before certain vowels and the glides that the friction occurs orally.  Voiceless sounds (similar, but not identical to, whispers) involve minor friction in the glottis; the friction in _heat_ is rather forceful and oral, thus voiceless /i/ is nothing like the sound at the beginning of the word _heat_.


> - Phonemic /h/ assimilated to a subsequent consonant morphs to something else, /hj/ is realized [çj].


Agreed.


> - I don't agree with the the analysis of [ʍ] as a surface structure realization of the phonemic sequence /h/+/w/. In diachronic analysis this doesn't need any justification, I hope; in synchronic analysis because after what has been said before, I think we all agree, that  the to-be-expected realization of /h/+/w/ would be [ʍw] and not [ʍ].


The sound comes out in different ways, and at times is certainly [ʍw], with the voicing beginning during the glide transition from [ʍ] to whichever vowel that follows.  But there is no reason to expect it to be that way all the time given a phonemic /hw/ situation; just like the voicing of _hue_ can begin at the glide (/j/) or be delayed until the vowel (/u/), so to can the voicing in _which_ begin at the glide (/w/) or be delayed until the vowel (/ɪ/).

_Hue_:
[çjuː] or [çj̊uː]

_Which_:
[ʍwɪʧ] or [ʍẘɪʧ] (yes, [ʍ] and [ẘ] are identical, but I wanted to keep the parallel with _hue_)

In my opinion, the evidence is pretty strong that the initial sounds in _hue_ and _which_ can best be explained as a phonemic /h/ + glide combination, thus systematizing _all_ the initial h-clusters of English (both past and present).

JE


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## berndf

JuanEscritor said:


> But it is not just voiceless, it is fricative


That is exactly where we disagree.


JuanEscritor said:


> The sound comes out in different ways, and at times is certainly [ʍw],  with the voicing beginning during the glide transition from [ʍ] to  whichever vowel that follows.


I think you on very thin ice there. Do you have evidence for that?


JuanEscritor said:


> thus systematizing _all_ the initial h-clusters of English (both *past* and present)


Are you seriously denying that English _<wh> _developed as spirantization of PIE _*kʷ_?


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## JuanEscritor

berndf said:


> That is exactly where we disagree.


Voiceless /i/ is not the same sound at the beginning of _heat_ in my recordings.  This is undeniable.


> I think you on very thin ice there. Do you have evidence for that?


Yes.  And I can upload the recording of myself if you'd like.


> Are you seriously denying that English _<wh> _developed as spirantization of PIE _*kʷ_?


Children don't learn the history of their language when they learn their language.  I have cited several sources indicating phonemic /hw/ for [ʍ].  You have yet to cite anything other than your best guess.

JE


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## berndf

JuanEscritor said:


> Yes.  And I can upload the recording of myself if you'd like.


Of course it _can _be produced. The question is whether it _regularly_ occurs.


JuanEscritor said:


> Children don't learn the history of their language when they learn their language.


You wrote "*past* and present".


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## JuanEscritor

berndf said:


> Of course it _can _be produced. The question is whether it _regularly_ occurs.
> You wrote "*past* and present".


And by 'past' I clearly did not mean PIE.


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## berndf

The obvious evolution is something like _kʷ_ > _xʷ (χʷ)__ > __xʍ_ _(χʍ) _> _ʍ_. The variant spelling _qu-_ or _quh-_ and evidence from Scots (e.g. Alexander Hume, Cap 7.8) suggest _xʷ (_χ_ʷ) _for Middle English. Since OE <h> stood for , [x]~[χ] and [ç] alike, the Old English spelling <hƿ> (as in hƿæt) can represent _xʷ (χʷ)__, __xʍ_ _(χʍ) _or _ʍ._


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## berndf

JuanEscritor said:


> Voiceless /i/ is not the same sound at the beginning of _heat_ in my recordings.  This is undeniable.


I can only repeat what I wrote before that probably escaped your attention because, as I just realized, the quote-tags were currupted and the text difficult to read:





berndf said:


> This is core of the disagreement: Does an   have to be a glottal fricative to be a "propper" one. IPA leaves it open  whether  should be classified as a fricative or as an approximant  and in most people's pronunciation of _heat_ (yours is admittedly  a bit on the edge) I hear enough of a globalization to describe it as  glottal approximant. At any rate, there is no more and no less of a  glottalization  is _heat _as there is is _hat _or _hot_. So, if you think there is no glottalization in _heat_ then the characterization of English /h/ as glottal should be given up all together.


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## Forero

JuanEscritor said:


> *Moderator note: Split from here.*
> 
> I believe [ç] is a common allophone of /h/ before /i/.  I always assumed this was because of /i/ being a high front vowel, but couldn't figure out why I didn't have [ç] before /ɪ/ since it is also roughly a high front vowel.
> 
> Now, however, the answer seems clear as day; since my /ɪ/ isn't close to my /i/ then there would be no reason to expect them to trigger similar allophonic processes.  Right?  Well, I guess that answer depends on whether /ɪ/ triggers [ç] in other dialects where /i/ triggers [ç].
> 
> So, in BE and other AE dialects that do not lower /ɪ/, does /h/ become [ç] before /ɪ/?
> 
> JE


In my dialect, _whine_ is [ʍɑi̯n] and _human_ is [ˈj̊ʊu̯mən], with no voiced [w] or [j] present.

[hi] and [hu] begin with different "versions" of , with the same mouth positions as for _ and , respectively. Since these positions involve stricture between tongue and (hard or soft) palate, I hear only velar or palatal frication for these s, not glottal frication. In contrast, [ɪ] and [ʊ] are not tense enough to modify a preceding  to such a degree.

My heat begins with [hɪi̯], not [hi], and my hoot begins with [hʊu̯], not [hu], so there is no audible velar or palatal frication in these words for me.

(For Youngfun's benefit, I'll add that [j̊] and [ç] are almost the same, and I would call them both fricatives. The difference is in the sharpness of the stricture. For [ç] a larger part of the middle of the tongue is brought (nearly) in contact with the hard palate than for [j̊]. In most dialects of Mandarin Chinese, these two sounds are one phoneme, but I have read somewhere that there is a Mandarin dialect (spoken somewhere near Běijīng?) in which the two are distinguished. Unfortunately I don't remember the minimal pair(s) involved.)  _


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## JuanEscritor

Forero said:


> In my dialect, _whine_ is [ʍɑi̯n] and _human_ is [ˈj̊ʊu̯mən], with no voiced [w] or [j] present.


Absolutely.  It is good to get the perspective of another native speaker on this.  I would say that the /j/ in my _human_ is also typically voiceless, the friction occurring at the palate.  It is still very much a glide though; as much of a glide as [ʍ] in _whine_.



> [hi] and [hu] begin with different "versions" of , with the same mouth positions as for _ and , respectively. Since these positions involve stricture between tongue and (hard or soft) palate, I hear only velar or palatal frication for these s, not glottal frication. _


_This is the same for me.  

Thank you for your insightful input!

JE _


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## berndf

Forero said:


> I'll add that [j̊] and [ç] are almost the same, and I would call them both fricatives.


[ç] equals [ʝ̊]. [ʝ̊] is a fricative and [j̊] approximant.


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## JuanEscritor

berndf said:


> The obvious evolution is something like _kʷ_ > _xʷ (χʷ)__ > __xʍ_ _(χʍ) _> _ʍ_. The variant spelling _qu-_ or _quh-_ and evidence from Scots (e.g. Alexander Hume, Cap 7.8) suggest _xʷ (_χ_ʷ) _for Middle English. Since OE <h> stood for , [x]~[χ] and [ç] alike, the Old English spelling <hƿ> (as in hƿæt) can represent _xʷ (χʷ)__, __xʍ_ _(χʍ) _or _ʍ._


Your hypothesis is sunk before it even hits the water.  The evolution of the sound realized as [ʍ] in OE shows it to have been a combination of two phonemes throughout its history and into the present day—the _k_ underwent Grimm's Law changes separate the _w_.  In similar fashion PIE _kl_ becomes OE /hl/, so that phonemic /hw/ fits perfectly into the pattern of English h-clusters which are all distinct sounds when realized, and (often) originate from biphonemic PIE clusters through similar processes as /hw/. (e.g., [l̥] in OE _hlæder _from PIE *_klei-_).  

It is only through the absurd randomness of life that the IPA has a  separate symbol for the realization of the /hw/ phoneme cluster but not  /hr/, /hj/, or /hl/.  Just because we represent a sound with one symbol doesn't mean it is one phoneme.  If we abandoned the use of _ʍ_ as a symbol and represent the w/ʍ distinction in the same manner we represent other voiced/voiceless distinctions, we have a clear systematic bias favoring phonemic /hw/:

/hr/ → [ɹ̊]
/hl/ → [l̥]
/hj/ → [j̊]
/hw/ → [ẘ]

Unless you can bring in some very convincing sources to the contrary, I do not see how you can argue against the solid logic of phonemic /hw/.  A theory so beautiful has to be true.

JE


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## berndf

Forero said:


> In my dialect, _whine_ is [ʍɑi̯n] and _human_ is [ˈj̊ʊu̯mən], with no voiced [w] or [j] present.


That's a good point. I dare say this applies to most speakers who start _human _unvoiced.


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## berndf

JuanEscritor said:


> Unless you can bring in some very convincing sources to the contrary, I do not see how you can argue against the solid logic of phonemic /hw/.  A theory so beautiful has to be true.


You know as well as I do that the path of science is paved with the corpses of beautiful false theories. So, that's certainly not an argument. The evidence from older Scots, the closest thing to ME we know, cannot be ignored.

I am personally very sceptical that  was already fully developed in either OE or OHG and all the allophones of /h/ were still much closer to [x] then anything we know from modern English. In OHG and Old Franconian we have variation in spelling of initial /h/ between "ch" and "h" (e.g. _Chiemo_ vs. _Hiemo_, _Childebrand_ vs. _Hildebrand_). English and German scribes felt the need to systematically distinguish between  and [x]-[ç] only from the 11th century onwards, <h> vs. <ch> in MHG and <h> vs. <ȝ> in ME.

There are many more clusters that have been reduced in Modern English (_wr-, wl-, kn- pn-, hn-_). Your theory seem rather ModE-centric than beautiful to me; especially as it contains the problematic (to say it mildly) assumption that /r/ was [ɹ] in OE.


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## JuanEscritor

berndf said:


> I am personally very sceptical that  was already fully developed in either OE or OHG and all the allophones of /h/ were still much closer to [x] then anything we know from modern English.


That's possible, but also very irrelevant to the point of phonemic /hw/.



> There are many more clusters that have been reduced in Modern English (_wr-, wl-, kn- pn-, hn-_).


So you agree that PDE's use of [w] in place of [ʍ] is an example of cluster simplification? 



> Your theory seem rather ModE-centric than beautiful to me; especially as it contains the problematic (to say it mildly) assumption that /r/ was [ɹ] in OE.


That was just my convention.  You can have it realized however you'd like; the pattern still stands. 

JE


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## JuanEscritor

I'm sorry for my relatively short and somewhat repetitive replies lately.  I've been busy with work this week and I will hopefully be able to devote more time this weekend to a substantive post laying out what I think of the issues that have been discussed in this thread and their relevancy to PDE variations of /h/.

JE


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## berndf

No problem. You have convinced me that my assumption of uninterrupted phonemicity of the Germanic reflex of PIE_ kʷ_ throughout the history of English cannot be taken as a matter of course. As it corresponds only marginally to the topic, I think we can stop this discussion here.

 On the other hand, given large number of cluster simplifications which happened in Middle English and sometimes as late as Early Modern English, the idea that all _h-_cluster were already reduced in old English has little plausibility, especially sine it assumes the modern sound value of /h/: [hw], [hl],


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## JuanEscritor

berndf said:


> On the other hand, given large number of cluster simplifications which happened in Middle English and sometimes as late as Early Modern English, the idea that all _h-_cluster were already reduced in old English has little plausibility, especially sine it assumes the modern sound value of /h/: [hw], [hl],


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## berndf

JuanEscritor said:


> I don't know if there are any.  The question would come down to how English got its /hj/ words.  I can think of no /hj/ cluster not followed by /u/, so I can only assume that their histories are intimately linked.


That's what I thought. /hj/ is an artefact of the yodated long "u". But that is Modern and not Old or Middle English.


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## JuanEscritor

berndf said:


> That's what I thought. /hj/ is an artefact of the yodated long "u". But that is Modern and not Old or Middle English.


But what does that solve?  I guess I am forgetting how this part of the discussion got started.


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## JuanEscritor

I bought a new microphone; what a difference it makes!

I did some more analysis and have found that there is no [j] at all in _hue_.  The sound that follows the [ç] is definitely _, and it is not a glide at all, but a standard diphthong.  A word like you starts with a vowel-like sound somewhere in the /i/ range, and immediately yet slowly moves toward the  in an upwards hump (describing the spectrogram shape of the second formant).  The sound following [ç], however, in a word like hue starts in the /i/ range, stays there for a short while, and then quickly slopes off into the , forming something of a slanted cliff with the second formant.  So when you play back a recording of hue without the [ç], the result is a word sounding like eww (the sound people make when disgusted) and not you.  

This is true in my own recordings and a recording I did of someone from New England.

And I have a feeling this will hold true for new words as well; that is, ufe pronounced as [juf] will be pronounced as [çiuf] when an h is added (hufe).  Which means /hj/ becomes [çi], not [çj].  

Of course this doesn't change the phonemic analysis: the cluster is still /hj/ even though its realization is [çi].  I wonder how people who say Houston without the h pronounce the initial sound set—now that would be some interesting data!  Any 'Oustonites here that care to upload their speech?

JE_


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## Forero

JuanEscritor said:


> I bought a new microphone; what a difference it makes!
> 
> I did some more analysis and have found that there is no [j] at all in _hue_.  The sound that follows the [ç] is definitely _, and it is not a glide at all, but a standard diphthong.  A word like you starts with a vowel-like sound somewhere in the /i/ range, and immediately yet slowly moves toward the  in an upwards hump (describing the spectrogram shape of the second formant).  The sound following [ç], however, in a word like hue starts in the /i/ range, stays there for a short while, and then quickly slopes off into the , forming something of a slanted cliff with the second formant.  So when you play back a recording of hue without the [ç], the result is a word sounding like eww (the sound people make when disgusted) and not you.
> 
> This is true in my own recordings and a recording I did of someone from New England.
> 
> And I have a feeling this will hold true for new words as well; that is, ufe pronounced as [juf] will be pronounced as [çiuf] when an h is added (hufe).  Which means /hj/ becomes [çi], not [çj].
> 
> Of course this doesn't change the phonemic analysis: the cluster is still /hj/ even though its realization is [çi].  I wonder how people who say Houston without the h pronounce the initial sound set—now that would be some interesting data!  Any 'Oustonites here that care to upload their speech?
> 
> JE_


_I don't pronounce hue with , and my cousin from Houston, Texas, pronounces Houston with [j] (the first syllable sounds just like "you"), not ._


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## JuanEscritor

Forero said:


> I don't pronounce _hue_ with _, and my cousin from Houston, Texas, pronounces Houston with [j] (the first syllable sounds just like "you"), not ._


_Is this according to spectrogram analyses?_


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## JuanEscritor

I work with children; we practice reading and phonemic awareness skills.  One exercise we do involves me saying a word and the student segmenting the word into its phonemes.  While I have a word list, I occasionally step off it and throw in a couple of extra items to practice with the kids.  The other day I added the words _hew_ and _you_.  I was quite surprised to hear how the child segmented the words:

_you_: /j/, /u/
_hew_: /h/, /i/, /u/

The children don't observe a difference between [j] and [jə] when heard, but they typically produce the latter when required to indicate the presence of /j/.  They do hear the difference between [j]/[jə] and _ (i.e., the sounds cannot be substituted for one another).

I wonder what this says about our assumptions of English having phonemic /hj/.  Does English not really have /hj/?  I haven't ruled out all other explanations for the observations.  For example, as I said above, my hew is produced [çiu:] (not [çju:]) and if this was a new word for the child s/he may not have been aware of an underlying /hj/ (since this combination is already rather rare in English) and so was merely repeating the phones he heardrather than the phonemes.

Nevertheless, I find this observation quite intriguing and worth further investigation.

JE_


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## Ben Jamin

JuanEscritor said:


> I work with children; we practice reading and phonemic awareness skills.  One exercise we do involves me saying a word and the student segmenting the word into its phonemes.  While I have a word list, I occasionally step off it and throw in a couple of extra items to practice with the kids.  The other day I added the words _hew_ and _you_.  I was quite surprised to hear how the child segmented the words:
> 
> _you_: /j/, /u/
> _hew_: /h/, /i/, /u/
> 
> The children don't observe a difference between [j] and [jə] when heard, but they typically produce the latter when required to indicate the presence of /j/.  They do hear the difference between [j]/[jə] and _ (i.e., the sounds cannot be substituted for one another).
> 
> I wonder what this says about our assumptions of English having phonemic /hj/.  Does English not really have /hj/?  I haven't ruled out all other explanations for the observations.  For example, as I said above, my hew is produced [çiu:] (not [çju:]) and if this was a new word for the child s/he may not have been aware of an underlying /hj/ (since this combination is already rather rare in English) and so was merely repeating the phones he heardrather than the phonemes.
> 
> Nevertheless, I find this observation quite intriguing and worth further investigation.
> 
> JE_


_

Do you pronounce the /i/ in  [çiu:] as a syllabic vowel - /ç-i-u/, with two syllables? If not, what is the difference between [çiu:] and [çju:])?_


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## JuanEscritor

*This post has been edited to include a critical correction (ewe to eww).  Several quotes have already been posted which contain the original error.​*
__________________________________________________​


Ben Jamin said:


> Do you pronounce the /i/ in  [çiu:] as a syllabic vowel - /ç-i-u/, with two syllables?


The _ is not syllabic.  It functions as the [j] would function, but it is not a [j].




			If not, what is the difference between [çiu:] and [çju:])?
		
Click to expand...


Phonemically?  Absolutely nothing.  But [j] and  are two different sounds; the former is more raised than the latter.  They can be distinguished in spectrogram analysis.  The way they transition is also different.  

The formant values of the realized /j/ are identical to the formant values of /i/ in eww.  The transition from /j/ to /u/ in hew is also the same as the transition from /i/ to /u/ in eww.    Furthermore, and perhaps most telling, when the /h/ ([ç]) is clipped from hew and the remainder played back, the word heard is not you but eww.

I had believed that  was simply the phonetic realization of /j/, but the response of this child has me wondering if something else is going on.  One test I have considered to check this involves creating a made-up word beginning with /ju/ (utay), informing the subject that the word begins with the said sequence, and then asking them to pronounce it themselves.  Next, they are asked to add /h/ to the beginning.  Recording and analyze both responses.  

JE_


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## Dan2

Hi folks,


Ben Jamin said:


> Do you pronounce the /i/ in  [çiu:] as a  syllabic vowel - /ç-i-u/, with two syllables? If not, what is the  difference between [çiu:] and [çju:])


I would've asked exactly this question if Ben Jamin had not.


JuanEscritor said:


> The _ is not syllabic.  It functions as the [j] would function, but it is not a [j]._


_
But isn't the standard description that [j] is a non-syllabic  (and [w] a non-syllabic )?


JuanEscritor said:



			But [j] and  are two different  sounds; the former is more raised than the latter.  They can be  distinguished in spectrogram analysis.  The way they transition is also  different. 

Click to expand...


All this is true if you compare syllabic  with non-syllabic [j].  But you are claiming that there is a non-syllabic  which is articulatorily and acoustically different from (non-syllabic) [j].  Isn't that a pretty controvesial claim?

Here's a hypothesis that accounts for a lot of the disagreement in this thread: Words that are typically transcribed with [j] are pronounced, in your dialect (or idiolect), JE, with a sound different (more fricative-like?) from what is meant by [j] in IPA.  Then, needing a symbol to represent traditional IPA [j], you choose "non-syllabic ".  Any chance that that's the case?


JuanEscritor said:



			The formant values of the realized /j/ are identical to the formant values of /i/ in ewe.  The transition from /j/ to /u/ in hew is also the same as the transition from /i/ to /u/ in ewe.    Furthermore, and perhaps most telling, when the /h/ ([ç]) is clipped from hew and the remainder played back, the word heard is not you but ewe.
		
Click to expand...

I pronounce "you" and "ewe" identically.  But more importantly, I just checked half a dozen dictionaries, print and online, and all have identical pronunciations for these two words._


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## JuanEscritor

Dan2 said:


> But isn't the standard description that [j] is a non-syllabic _ (and [w] a non-syllabic )?_


_I don't think this is accurate.  The approximates /j/ and /w/ are higher than /i/ and /u/, and they lead differently into other sounds than the vowels do.  This can be seen from a quick glance at a spectrogram.




			All this is true if you compare syllabic  with non-syllabic [j].  But you are claiming that there is a non-syllabic  which is articulatorily and acoustically different from (non-syllabic) [j].  Isn't that a pretty controvesial claim?

Click to expand...

Why should it be controversial?  In English, phonemic vowels are syllabic; but I am not yet convinced that the  in hew is phonemic.  The exercise with the child is interesting, but it is not evidence of anything more than a good avenue for future research.




			Here's a hypothesis that accounts for a lot of the disagreement in this thread: Words that are typically transcribed with [j] are pronounced, in your dialect (or idiolect), JE, with a sound different (more fricative-like?) from what is meant by [j] in IPA.  Then, needing a symbol to represent traditional IPA [j], you choose "non-syllabic ".  Any chance that that's the case?

Click to expand...

The case is that /j/ and /i/ are phonetically distinct in all varieties of English that distinguish you from eww (the sound made when disgusted)--/j/ and /i/ are distinct in English for purely phonetic reasons that have nothing to do with whether they stand as syllable nuclei or not.




			I pronounce "you" and "ewe" identically.  But more importantly, I just checked half a dozen dictionaries, print and online, and all have identical pronunciations for these two words.
		
Click to expand...

And this is my fault for the confusion.  I was trying for a phonetic spelling of the word eww and didn't even realize I was spelling a completely different word and creating a critical contradiction in my argument; So yes, ewe and you are identical for me as well.  The distinction I was trying to highlight was between eww and you.

JE_


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