🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <941mol$nbe$1@kemoauc.mips.inka.de>,
Christian Weisgerber <naddy@mips.inka.de> wrote:
>Adam Jacobs <ajk@socrates.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>> It also goes the other way, viz. kukker "(type of optical instrument)" :-)
>> < "Gucker", though "gukker" is probably as common.
>"gucken" and "kucken" are both in use in Germany.  Opinions which
>form is more standard vary.  Dictionaries admit both.  As usual,
>attempts in de.etc.sprache.misc to determine the regional distribution
>have failed.

Yeah, that was exactly the point I was trying to make in my 
post: forms like H. "giccs" : G. "Kitsch" are due to variation within
German itself rather than a supposed k->g process in Hungarian, as the
original poster (I forget who) hypothesized.

Checking a couple of dictionaries, the primary G. citation form does usually
seem to be 'gucken.'  For what it's worth, I think I always say Gucker in
German and kukker in Hungarian, dunno why.

>For word-initial stops, Northern/Standard German pronunciation
>makes a two-way distinction between {voiceless, aspirated} /p/,
>/t/, /k/ and {voiced, unaspirated} /b/, /d/, /g/.  Actually I think
>there is some dispute whether voicing enters the picture at all,
>with "lax" and "tense" also being quoted as distinctions, whatever
>qualities these are supposed to refer to.

Well, phonologically speaking the important fact is that there is a two-way
fortis-lenis distinction.  The exact phonetic identity of the segments
in question is, for many purposes, less important.

>As you get down further South the distinctive quality that seems
>to primarily break down is aspiration.

The question is: is the phonological distinction ever actually neutralized?

>How does Hungarian handle aspiration in word-initial stops?

Aspiration is not a distinctive feature in Hungarian and phonetically
speaking no dialect I've heard aspirates stops in any position to any 
noticeable degree.


>
>-- 
>Christian "naddy" Weisgerber                          naddy@mips.inka.de