Talk:Voiceless labiodental affricate
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[edit] Valid example?
From the article:
- German has a similar sound, a voiceless bilabial-labiodental affricate, as in Apfel [ap͡fəl] 'apple'. This differs from a true labiodental affricate in that it starts out with a bilabial stop [p].
Is the Apfel example a valid illustration of an affricate? To be considered a true affricate (or at least a valid phoneme in the language), shouldn't we show the phoneme within a single syllable (ie Pfeiffer or something to that effect)? I don't know German, but on its face it looks like there's a syllable division: [ap.fel]. Is it actually [a.pfel] or are there other considerations? I mean, English has helpful and that has the [pf] as a consecutive sound, but it's not an actual phonemic affricate in English.
Of course, I think that this discussion would fit better on a talk page for the voiceless bilabial-labiodental affricate itself, but it doesn't exist yet. JordeeBec 03:42, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
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- The German pf in Apfel is in the same syllable, it is the coda of the first one and the onset of the second. It becomes even clearer when you consider that Apfel developed from the /p/ in English "Apple". In English helpful the /p/ and the /f/ are clearly in different syllables and sound nothing like the /p͡f/ in Apfel. Hope that helps! --Chlämens 02:19, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
- I don't quite see what you mean. However, I'd say the syllable boundary runs through the [p]: the preceding vowel is short, and the [p͡f], i. e. the [p] part of it, is therefore slightly lengthened. For /t͡s/, this is shown in the orthography (z vs tz), for /p͡f/ it isn't. This lengthening is absent in English ([hɛɫp.͡fʊɫ]) – and it is additional evidence that /p͡f/ really is a unitary phoneme in German.
- Or wait – it isn't, sorry, because /p͡f/ has no short version (except word-initially, but there in all cases)! That's because it developed (except word-initially) from the lengthened version of /p/. It does not occur behind long vowels, where /f/ is found instead. This must be why there's no extra ppf in the orthography.
- However, [ap͡fəl] as a phonetic transcription is simply wrong. While you can argue that this is what's going on at the phonemic level*, there is in fact no schwa or other vowel in the second syllable; instead the /l/ is syllabic. I'll fix that immediately.
- (*) You'd still be wrong, but that falls under original research, so I better shut up… :-) David Marjanović (talk) 00:53, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
- The German pf in Apfel is in the same syllable, it is the coda of the first one and the onset of the second. It becomes even clearer when you consider that Apfel developed from the /p/ in English "Apple". In English helpful the /p/ and the /f/ are clearly in different syllables and sound nothing like the /p͡f/ in Apfel. Hope that helps! --Chlämens 02:19, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Self-contradicting example
- There is no voiceless labiodental fricative [f]
yet
- compare [ɱfutsu] "tortoise"
?? õ_o
