Re: The [a] sound...
Saul Epstein 
Mon, 16 Mar 1998 08:23:58 -0600

Quotes from: Dr Maggie Hellstrom, Lund
Date: Monday, March 16, 1998 7:49 AM


>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...

Hmm. Would you say that the first syllable in "patte" is a near-rhyme
with British "part" (the latter being longer, of course)? There's less
room for the tongue to manuever when low, so the differences are
smaller, and I'm not sure I've ever sorted out the different As
completely...

--
from Saul Epstein
locus*planetkc,com
www,jccc,net/~sepstein
"Surak ow'phaaper thes'hi thes'tca'; thes'phaadjar thes'hi
    suraketca'."
                                        -- K'dvarin Urswhl'at