Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Henry Churchyard" <churchh AT usa.net>]

>>>>> From: ben.crick AT argonet.co.uk (Ben Crick)

>>>>> There is no difference in pronunciation; how can you
>>>>> differentiate in speech between "Sh" and "ShSh"?

>>>> From: Henry Churchyard

>>>> There certainly are languages that have a doubled "sh" sound in
>>>> speech; Arabic and Japanese spring to mind...

>>> From: Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>

>>> And in connected speech in English (ie spoken normally):
>>>     Bush showed a lot.
>>> There is a double $ going from Bush to showed. Try and say it with
>>> only one and you end up with
>>>     Bush owed a lot.
>>> So, is there really no difference in pronunciation?

>> From: ben.crick AT argonet.co.uk (Ben Crick)

>>  Well yes, there is. You put a glottal stop ('aleph or `ayin; or a
>>  Shewa) between the last Sh of Bush and the first Sh of showed.
>>  The same thing occurs with the often spoken "Bus stop", which
>>  becomes "bus top" in lazy speech.  In Handel's Messiah, our choir
>>  director insisted that we articulate "He shall reign for 'ever and
>>  'ever" with glottal stops, not by singing it "he shall reign
>>  forever endeavour".

> From: Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>

> Definitely not! There is no glottal stop there in connected speech
> -- that would be "unconnected" speech and quite unnatural!  There is
> simply a double $, ie the $ is held from the end of Bush to the
> start of showed.  In connected speech, although you don't put a
> glottal stop between the two /s/, you can hear the difference
> between "bus stop" and "bus top" because the /s/ is discretely
> *longer* in the first. (This is not to contradict the idea that in
> "lazy speech" only one /s/ is said.)

Two points:

1) English junctural phenomena are not a very good example here,
because English does not have a distinctive "phonemic" consonant
length contrast, so that the ears of native speakers of English are
not attuned to hear length contrasts as being such (instead of as cues
to possible word boundaries).  Also, the junctural phenomena are
inherently variable, subject to speech-style variation, etc. (i.e.
are "gradient" rather than "categorical").  So it's much better to
use as examples languages which have a phonemic -sh- vs. -shsh-
contrast (such as the two I mentioned).  Cross-linguistically, a
distinctively geminated "sh" sound is not at all exotic or rare.


2) "Bush showed" does _not_ contain a glottal stop between the two "sh"
sounds in any normal type of speech.  A released glottal stop
accompanied by aspiration (such as a glottal stop pronounced in
conjunction with a following _sh_ sound would be) is a very distinctive
"mini-cough" kind of sound, which is extremely recognizable once you've
heard it and know what is.  And in combination, a released glottal stop
preceding an "sh" sound would sound sort of like a "ch" (i.e. "tsh")
affricate sound -- except with a mini-cough in place of the "t" ;-)

However, "Bush owed" does contain a glottal-stop in a formal and
consciously careful speech-style (with the glottal stop taken from the
utterance-initial pronunciation of "owed", in order to push the "sh"
unambiguously into the preceding syllable; this is the same
pronunciation your choir teacher inisisted on).  In such a formal and
consciously careful speech-style, "Bush showed" is actually pronounced
_without_ such a glottal stop before the second vowel (in order to
distinguish it from the formal careful pronunciation of "Bush owed").

P.S. In the original pronunciation, _`ayin_ is quite different and
distinct from _'aleph_ ...


--
Henry Churchyard   churchh AT usa.net   http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/