The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

[alynnidalar]

How would you pronounce this Montana Salish word?

With very great difficulty!

[svld]

Emphasis mine. How can a voiceless sound have a tone?

By amount of air flow. When I'm pronouncing a tone the amount of air flow is not constant, about level tones it's high>mid>low.
It does lack the pitch difference (aside from the different of the hissing) so I guess it's not really a tone, but I don't know how else can I mark it.

[Zaarin]

I'm curious how others here pronounce /s/. I understand that English /s/ can have a wide variation of realizations; I've heard reports of [s̪] in the Pacific Northwest, [s̺] seems to be considered standard, but I'm quite positive I have [s̱].

[sirdanilot]

I don't know, but I do know there's a difference between the [s] of Friesland and the [s] of my region Zeeland. The Frisian one seems more... laminal? At least it sounds much more salient than our [s]. We were with a Friesian once in Zeeland and we told him some of our dialect words, and when he pronounced them he used his native [s] and it sounded very foreign because it it. 'You say the s too loud !' someone said.

[L'alphabētarium]

How do you handle moving from a post­al­ve­o­lar shibilant to an alveolar sibilant between word boundaries in English.
For example, change sum or brush sign.

Do you completely release the shibilant or alveolarise it to a sibilant to avoid something like /...dʒ-s.../ or /...ʃ-s.../ from happening?

EDIT: ...or the other way around for that matter (e.g. mass shock).

[Zaarin]

How do you handle moving from a post­al­ve­o­lar shibilant to an alveolar sibilant between word boundaries in English.
For example, change sum or brush sign.

Do you completely release the shibilant or alveolarise it to a sibilant to avoid something like /...dʒ-s.../ or /...ʃ-s.../ from happening?

EDIT: ...or the other way around for that matter (e.g. mass shock).

I have a pause there.

[----]

My /s/ is definitely laminal, and I can't be sure, but I think at least part of the contact is on the teeth.

[vokzhen]

Between the problem of over-analyzing one's own speech and the ridiculous variation in how you can pronounce /s/ I can't be completely sure, but I'm pretty sure it's apical alveolar or postdental, with friction between the tip and the "plateau" of the alveolar ridge, just behind where the teeth meet the gums. In certain speech it might instead be what I think is denti-alveolar, tip of the tongue pointed directly at the teeth and friction just behind the tip of the tongue (still against the "plateau" afaict); I'm pretty certain I picked this up as a little bit of a lisp just after coming out, rather than noticing it for the first time then. The latter pronunciation, the times I've noticed it, seems to be contextual, as an additional marker along with things like intonation, pitch, etc that are used to help inform a person how they should take what you're saying (overall falling intonation, using a deeper voice, and apico-postdental /s/ for making a speech, while asking about an idea in an informal setting tends to have higher pitch, more use of rising intonation, more use of hedging words, and denti-alveolar /s/).

I just transition directly between two sounds in sibilant clusters; "mass shock" is /mæs ʃak/. I think "change sum" ends up devoiced, or contours from voiced to devoiced, but with further experimentation I think it's the same in isolation too ("voiced" [tʃʰeɪˑntʃ] versus "voiceless" [tʃʰeɪn̰ʔtʃ]), and the POA is identical to initial /dʒ/.

[Nortaneous]

I'm curious how others here pronounce /s/. I understand that English /s/ can have a wide variation of realizations; I've heard reports of [s̪] in the Pacific Northwest, [s̺] seems to be considered standard, but I'm quite positive I have [s̱].

my s is laminal in genam and apical in dialect. apical seems marked enough to me that i try to avoid it

[ol bofosh]

I think mines close to dental, but there is a slight difference of position between prints and prince, there's a merger, but not complete. I'll have to research these terms to figure it out a bit. I think it's because my /t/ is "not quite dental".

[ol bofosh]

Okay, here's what I can figure out, I have a prince-prints merger, however, there is a slight difference (that probably breaks down in less careful speech):

prince [pʰʋɹɪn̻t̻s̻]

prints [pʰʋɹɪn̪t̪s̪]

Possibly because:

Laminal /s t/

Denti-alveolar /n z d l/

[sirdanilot]

^Weird
I do sometimes say, in Dutch [kompt] for 'komt' but it's logical of course. Better than changing it into [kɔnt] (which means 'ass').

[opipik]

How do you pronounce "consider" ?

[Pole, the]

[tsɔnˈɕidɛr]

But then, I am Pole, the.

[sirdanilot]

How do you pronounce "consider" ?

[kɔnˈsɪdɹ] with accent on the second syllable.

[vokzhen]

[kʰ(ə)n'sɪɾɚ]. The first vowel is barely there and the only thing stopping me from saying that it's a syllabic nasal is I think there's about as much transition as I have in words like berserker and katana, where there's an extremely short schwa keeping it from being initial /bz/ or /kt/ clusters. They're very unlike finals schwas, the post-stress schwas in dinosaur or encyclopedia, or the pre-stress one in lasagna, which are all pretty clearly pronounced.

[Zaarin]

[kʰ(ə)n'sɪɾɚ]. The first vowel is barely there and the only thing stopping me from saying that it's a syllabic nasal is I think there's about as much transition as I have in words like berserker and katana, where there's an extremely short schwa keeping it from being initial /bz/ or /kt/ clusters. They're very unlike finals schwas, the post-stress schwas in dinosaur or encyclopedia, or the pre-stress one in lasagna, which are all pretty clearly pronounced.

Same for me, though I think the sound I have in dinosaur and encyclopedia is [ɵ].

[Imralu]

python
modem

[Matrix]

[ˈpʰʌɪ̯.θɑn]
[ˈmoʊ̯.ɾm̩]

[ol bofosh]

kʰən.ˈsɪ.dɜ

ˈpʰɐɪ̯.θən
ˈmɜʉ̯.dɛm

[Matrix]

oh also
[kʰʌnˈsɪ.ɾɹ̩]

[L'alphabētarium]

[kʰʌnˈsɪ.dɚ]
[ˈpʰɑɪ.θən]
['mʌ.dɚn]

ocean vs oceanic?

EDIT: also... autumn. Do you pronounce the [n] at the end?

[sirdanilot]

I would especially if a vowel comes after it. But no native speaker here.

[ˈɑːtəmn]

[----]

I'm pretty sure no one has ever pronounced the n in 'autumn' in English.

[Sumelic]

[kʰn̩ˈsɪɾɚ]
[ˈpʰaɪ̯θɑn]
['moʊ̯ɾm̩]
['oʊ̯ʃn̩]
[oʊ̯ʃi'eə̯nɪk]
['ɑɾm̩]

I'm pretty sure no one has ever pronounced the n in 'autumn' in English.

I think you underestimate the power of spelling pronunciation.