Re: The [a] sound...
Rob Zook 
Mon, 16 Mar 1998 08:15:03 -0600

At 12:54 PM 3/16/98 +0100, Dr Maggie Hellstrom, Lund wrote:
>Saul just wrote:
>> The mystery about [a] is just personal: I don't know how to 
>> pronounce Fr. "patte'"
>
>As far as my linguistically untrained ears can tell, there is precious 
>little difference between the way a French speaker pronounces the [a] 
>sound in the "patte" and the [a] sound in the German word "Bach": both are 
>short sounds with the tounge in more or less the same place... (Of course, 
>the comparison is made difficult by the following sounds, so I can very 
>well be wrong!)

The [a] in Bach, occurs just a little bit higher and further back in
the throat, and your right it does seem like a small difference. In 
languages were such a difference does not change the meaning of a word,
one may find it very difficult to hear them. Other langauges have such
vowel changes between two different words, and to them the difference 
appears quite profound.


Rob Z.
--------------------------------------------------------
"..,That no government, so called, can reasonably be
trusted for a moment, or reasonably be supposed to have 
honest purposes in view, any longer than it depends wholly 
upon voluntary support."
--- Lysander Spooner, 
    No Treason: the Constitution of No Authority