site banner
PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   2090 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 31, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

So, what are you reading?

Still on Red Dynamite. Going through King Lear.

"A Crosslinguistic Investigation of Palatalization," Nicoleta Bateman's 2007 doctoral dissertation.

This dissertation is concerned with an investigation of palatalization which covers a majority of the above-mentioned processes. I will refer to two types of palatalization: in one case the consonant shifts its primary place and often its manner of articulation while moving toward the palatal region of the vocal tract, as in (1), and in the other it is co-articulated with a following palatal offglide, as in (2).

(1) Full Palatalization

k, t → tʃ /dont ju/ → [dontʃju] 'don't you' (English)

(2) Secondary palatalization

t, d → tj, dj

/yamati/ → [yamatji] 'a person' (Watjarri, W. Pama Nyungan; Douglas 1981)

Finally in (5c) we see a change that has been adopted into the English lexicon, thimble, where the lip closure for [m] and the velic opening for [l] overlap and cause the perception of a voiced bilabial stop. This is a case of 'stop intrusion' between a nasal and a fricative/continuant that has been proposed as the transitional element between the two distinct sounds (Clements 1987). Another well known example from English where stop intrusion occurs is in the pronunciation of prince, where a [t] is perceived between the nasal and [s], [prɪnts]. The release of the alveolar nasal [n] and the transition into the [s] gesture produce the acoustic effect of an alveolar stop [t] (see also Yoo & Blankenship 2003). Arvaniti, Kilpatrick and Shosted (submitted) tested the perception of epenthetic and underlying [t] in the same [n_s] context as in prince vs. prints, and found that American English speakers could not distinguish reliably between epenthetic and underlying [t], which suggests that the [nts] and [ns] alternation is moving toward complete neutralization.

Further support for perceptual epenthesis is provided by Davidson (2004) who presents experimental evidence showing that native speakers of English do not repair illegal onset clusters such as [zb], [zd], and [zg] by epenthesizing schwa, as is typically assumed. Davidson claims that the English speakers, not having experience coordinating the gestures of the consonants in these clusters, instead pull them apart, mistiming the gestures, which leads to the perception of an epenthesized schwa. This schwa, however, is qualitatively different from other schwa sounds that are normally produced during speech (lexical schwas; see Hall (2006) for additional evidence of perceived schwas resulting from gestural overlap).

i_know_some_of_these_words.gif

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats