Hi,
English /s/ is obviously a voiceless alveolar fricative, but is this sound actually apical (articulated with the tip of the tongue), laminal (articulated with the blade of your tongue), or something in between or perhaps both (articulated with the tip and the blade of your tongue)? Is your English /s/ apical, laminal, or something else?
EU
I really don’t have the faintest idea but I think it’s laminal…or it could be something else, as you put it. 
I do wonder though, which would be the American?
Hi EU,
I’m not too sure that you will find too many people to help you with your questions here. Some people have studied linguistics, but they (like me) may only remember the basics from their “introduction to linguistics”…
As for myself, my /s/ sounds are crap. I had a lisp when I was a kid, and during puberty I developed a habit of disguising it. In theory I know that you need to put your tongue’s blade on the alveolar ridge to produce “s” sounds. But that usually goes with having the tip of your tongue touching the teeth, so I tend to end up lisping it. Hence I have developed a habit of producing “s” sounds by placing the tip of my tongue on the palate, a bit like the Spaniards do. Being aware of this deficiency and observing myself in the mirror, I think I am quite reminiscent of a toothless Dalmatian pelican when ruminating. This sight usually makes me wish I were an ostrich so I could bury my head when teaching in class :roll:
The English ‘s’ is normally the same as the French, German or Latin American Spanish ‘s’, as compared to the Spanish, Greek or Dutch ‘s’, which almost sounds like a ‘sh’.
Now I couldn’t say what these s’s are called.
:lol:
Mad but true, this palatal fricative “sh” is the sound most Irish people produce when there should actually be a “t” sound. The lisps are not rounded, but retreat a little bit as if about to produce a “t” sound. But the tip of the tongue never touches the palate or alveolar ridge. Very aspirated indeed.
Gesh me oush of ish!
Hi Ralf,
That sounds more like a voiceless retroflex fricative (/ʂ/).
EU
Hi EU,
If /ʂ/ is the sound you find in German words such as “möchten” (to want), then that’s not what I mean. But I’m afraid I don’t know the symbol for it. All I know is that the tongue remains pretty relaxed and the sound is almost like an /ʃ/, but a bit more low key.
You could listen to this clip taken from the Irish comedy show Father Ted and pay attention to words ending in “t” or particulary the word “eating”, which sounds more like /iʃn/. You won’t find it in first position, though.
Hi Ralf,
/ʂ/ is not a sound you’d find in German. Sadly I am not able to listen to the voice clip at the moment, but from your description it seems possible that the sound in question could be an allophone of /ʃ/, in which case a diactritic mark could be used in combination with this symbol.
EU
Hi,
Wikipedia tells me that “/t/ (in Hiberno English) is not usually pronounced as a plosive where it does not occur word-initially; instead, it is pronounced as a fricative /t̞/, between [s] and [ʃ].” (Unfortunately, the forum does not allow me to copy the appropriate diacritic mark.)
EU