= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
polymathwannabe comments on Open thread, July 28 - August 3, 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (241)
1) The clusters in "upthrust" and "backstop" actually have three consonantal sounds, even if some of those sounds are written as digraphs. This debate is going to be very difficult if we're stuck to English or any language whose spelling makes little sense, if at all. Ghoti and all that.
2) Those clusters aren't in a single syllable. Up-thrust. Back-stop. Black-strap. Schatz-kam-mer. Op-schrij-ven. Apart from the exotic example you cite (and that time a Muppet tried to pronounce the entire alphabet as a single word), I haven't seen more than three consonants in a single syllable.
Yes. I wasn't intending them as examples of more than three, but of counterexamples to the rules that DanielLC proposed.
The original comment didn't talk about syllables.
"Firsts." On the other hand, a phoneticist might analyse the "ts" part as a single sound; except that on the phonetic level it appears to be two phonemes. So is (the sound represented in English spelling by) "ts" one consonant or two? Is the answer different for "tsetse" and for "firsts"? For "Katz" and for "cats"?
Linguistic categories are complicated.
My comment was confusingly written. If it's a single syllable, then you can only have one consonant without extenuating circumstances.