Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site spar.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!qantel!lll-crg!seismo!harvard!talcott!panda!genrad!decvax!decwrl!spar!ellis
From: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Syllabic Sibilants and other objects of wonder
Message-ID: <672@spar.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 26-Nov-85 11:34:36 EST
Article-I.D.: spar.672
Posted: Tue Nov 26 11:34:36 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 29-Nov-85 21:23:39 EST
References: <2176@brl-tgr.UUCP> <7100021@iuvax.UUCP> <381@bcsaic.UUCP>
Reply-To: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Organization: Schlumberger Palo Alto Research, CA
Lines: 53

>>...sounds like /s/, of which we can
>>say with confidence that it has certain phonetic properties
>>(energy concentrated above 4000 Hz) and certain phonological
>>ones (is syllabic if any fricatives within a langauge are syllabic).
>       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> - reilly@iuvax
>I'm glad someone brought this up.  Hooper (in her book "Natural
>Generative Phonology") also claimed that [s] was syllabic in English but
>not in Spanish.
>Mike Maxwell

    I infer that `syllabic' means `vowel-like', at least to my Indo-European
    bias which prefers a vowel in the nucleus of every syllable.

    I would instead argue that the closest English has to syllabic /s/ would
    be in the context /0/+_, analogous to syllabic /l,r,w,y,n,m/ or even
    /z/. In the below, capitalization means syllabicization:
    
    	mistress	/mistrS/  (or /mistr0s/)
	bosses		/bosZ/    (or /bos0z/)
	bottom		/batM/	  (or /bat0m/
	happen	        /haepN/	  (or /haep0n/)
	flapper		/flaepR/  (or /flaep0r/
	apple		/aepL/	  (or /aep0l/)
	happy	        /haepY/   (or /haep0y/)
	fellow          /felW/    (or /fel0w/)

    If /s,v/ in the above are syllabic, I suppose one would likewise
    consider /f,v,sh/ to be syllabic in {bailiff,active,fetish} as well,
    not to mention j in {garbage}.

    Note that all the syllabicized consonants above are in unstressed
    positions. In the English speech I've heard, it could be argued that
    /R,L/ can occur stressed, as:

        fur	        /fR/      (or /fur/, /faar/ nb: /aa/ = u in cut)
	full		/fL/	  (or /ful/)

    As to /s/ in /sp-,sk-,sm-../, I have probably  misunderstood Mike
    Maxwell's (and Hooper's) point, but /s/ in such contexts sounds seems to
    be as nonsyllabic as /s/ ever can be (in English, that is). 

    Mandarin Chinese is one of the few languages I know to have a sibilant
    vowel. This sound, which resembles a mixture of of `es' in `bridges' and
    `i' in `ill',  occurs after /ts/, /dz/, /s/:

     		                 Pinyin	      Wade Giles

    (vocabulary)   /tsZ hwey/    cihui        t'zu huei
    Chuang Tzu     /chwang dzZ/  chuang zi    ch'uang tzu
    Szechuan       /sZ chwan/    si chuan     szu ch'uan
    
-michael