Re: Phonetic question

necoandjeff wrote:
> "Paul Blay" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>>" Louise Bremner" wrote ...
>>
>>>Trinker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Is there a website out there with sound samples of either
>>>>"singer/finger" or the nasalization in Japanese?  I've never
>
> understood
>
>>>>either one, the former perhaps because I didn't learn English as a
>
> first
>
>>>>language, and the latter probably because my mother's native version
>
> of
>
>>>>  Japanese doesn't feature it.  But it might just be that I'm not
>>>>hearing it.
>>>
>>>Trinker! You're back! Welcome!
>>>
>>>Sorry--I can't help you with the sound files, though. The English
>>>example seems so obvious to me, I can't explain it
>>
>>Whereas for me it's so un-obvious that I can't explain it. ^^;
>>
>>I'm probably going to go round the rest of the day mumbling
>>"-ng- singer <> -ng- finger ??"
>
>
> I'm no linguist but here are the rules I can think of:
>
> 1. Nouns that end in nger (finger, hunger, anger) are pronounced with a hard
> g.
>
> 2. Verbs that end in ng (which is always nasalized) maintain the
> nasalization when adding er to the end to convert it to a noun representing
> someone who or something that engages in the verb action (singer, banger,
> hanger, ringer).
>
> 3. Adjectives that end in ng (which is always nasalized) are converted to a
> hard g (younger, longer) when adding er to form the comparative.
>
> Now, let the exceptions rip. Anybody?

Not an exception, but an observation: I think you're confusing spelling
and pronunciation. Singer is /sing-er/ (ng = velar nasal);  finger is
/fing-ger/. Does that make sense?

As for the Japanese velar nasalization, FWIW the IPA just notes it as a
language-specific form: "older and otherwise conservative speakers use
(the velar nasal) in all medial positions, except mainly for the element
/go/ `five'." They also say that /g/ tends towards a velar fricative
between vowels, but, possibly because I have tin ears, I haven't noticed
that myself.

Dan