Talk:aspirated h

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An "h" that is "aspirated". I'm sure that eventually there will be a referenced WP entry for this. Perhaps it would belong in some appendix or glossary, though I'm not sure why. This seems to be a good exemplar of "encyclopedic". DCDuring TALK 16:39, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Delete SoP.​—msh210℠ 20:20, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, aspirated has no adjectival sense right now. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:56, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Glad you asked. As with so many past participle forms it has sired an adjective: "To me, his "h"s sound more heavily aspirated than Jan's" (predicate position [not a form of "be" to confirm not passive], gradable, comparable). DCDuring TALK 22:50, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Come to think of it, I thought the English was aspirate h not aspirated. Maybe an error from a non native speaker? Mglovesfun (talk) 21:25, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Probably that too. I don't here much talk about phonology. That would be [[aspirate#Noun]] + [[h]]. DCDuring TALK 21:32, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Added mute h. DCDuring TALK 00:56, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Aspirated h's are not "pronounced with an audible breath"! The French words 'hauteur' (aspirated h) and 'auteur' are pronounced identically (/otœʁ/) on their own. You never say, *"ʰotœʁ". Likewise, 'mute h' is not simply an h that has no sound; it's an h that allows liaison or elision. —Internoob (Talk•Cont.) 01:52, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, he's perfectly right about that. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:13, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me that we often find reasons why anything linguistic has delicate non-SoP nuances that require a separate entry while giving the back of our hand to entries from other fields. And at the same time we make it difficult for newbies who actually are aware of the corresponding distinctions in other fields to participate. We sometimes dismiss their efforts if not punctilliously compliant with our rules, while granting each other latitude. Would we be so careful to ensure the inclusion of terms from, say, hairdressing or roofing?

At the very least, find a couple of reference works that define the term consistently, preferably across languages (unless we really need to define the term for each language where the concept is used). DCDuring TALK 20:32, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

This would be an argument for taking other fields more seriously (as we should), not for excluding valid words from one of the two fields (linguistics and computing) where the editing community has substantial collective expertise. IMO we need to work on doing a great job of the things we can do well, and not worry so much about the things we have to set aside for later. -- Visviva 04:58, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I make the point wherever and whenever I can, even OT. Not to put to find a point on it, what we can do well apparently is create a linguists' workshop, filled with tools, half-finished artifacts, unsalable curiosities, and shiny things generally. I would love to know how to move us along toward something more broadly useful, to motivate others to do so, or to recruit someone who does. DCDuring TALK 15:39, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't say that we have much of a linguists' workshop. Any time that a moderately obscure linguistic concept comes up in discussion, like pertainym a while back or ambiposition the other day, it is pretty much a given that the link will (at least initially) be red. This is pathetic; our dictionary is not even adequate to our own purposes in the field of our specialization. The reasons for this are pretty simple, I think; a mixture of the good old "contempt for the known" and the simple fact that nobody likes their hobby to be too much like their day job. Of course, at this stage of development, our coverage of every field leaves much to be desired. But I scarcely think that strangling our nascent, fragmentary linguistics coverage in its cradle is somehow going to help the rest of our content. -- Visviva 18:35, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

It seems like "mute h" is used (almost) exclusively in English discussions of French, and with the meaning given at w:Aspirated h. Both "aspirated h" and "mute h" are certainly not what I would have inferred from the sum of parts. I'm not sure why there would be any question of the presence of a distinct meaning here. Keep. -- Visviva 04:58, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

They might actually be misnomers because a mute h is not mute, an aspirated h is not aspirated. For mute h that *might* be deletable, but the only way to delete aspirated h and retain the meaning would be in aspirated (of an h) In the French language, that does not allow liaison with a consonant that precedes it. Keep both Mglovesfun (talk) 21:25, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Do Msh10 and DCDuring want to comment? Seems like an overall keep to me. Mglovesfun (talk)

Move to RfV. If it's really a misnomer (attestation would help establish that), then it might be a keep, unless "mute" has a sense that covers that "misnomer" meaning, making it not a misnomer. DCDuring TALK 15:43, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Cited. One can certainly say "the H is mute" in this sense, but that hardly makes this sum of parts, since that sense of "mute" is transparently derived from this phrase. -- Visviva 18:35, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

What I'm wondering is whether any other phonetic entity might also be modified by the word "mute" in the identical sense. Wouldn't that be an indication of SoPitude? (BTW, I am an equal-opportunity SoPitude strangler. See #roof tile). DCDuring TALK 19:24, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

(To DCDuring) I don't think so, plus Internoob has handily come up with some cites on WT:RFDO#September 2009. Mglovesfun (talk) 19:44, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

What about "mute labial b" which has a representation in the Cyrillic alphabet? DCDuring TALK 20:29, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

In simple searches I also find "mute e", "mute p". Does the meaning of "mute" change completely with each letter modified? Or does it mean something like not pronounced in all cases? Or are there subtle nuances that linguists alone can see or hear and that there is agreement about in the field or in subfields or in schools of thought or schools of thought within subfields? DCDuring TALK 20:40, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Nobody is arguing that "mute" cannot also mean "silent", AFAICT. "Mute h" can thus also mean "silent h", a fact that can be readily confirmed on b.g.c. (I'm agnostic as to whether this needs to be mentioned in the entry). Absent further evidence, I'm thus inclined to think that "mute=silent" in the examples you cite. The point here, as I would have thought the citations made clear, is that "mute h" has a more specific meaning that is unique to the study of French. -- Visviva 23:55, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

To me that just looks like a context-specific entailment rather than part of a proper dictionary definition. Could I define an "electrical plug" as being "a source of 120-volt alternating current electricity" (as it is in the US) and claim that for that reason it is not SoP? DCDuring TALK 00:35, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Strong keep. Sigh. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 15:11, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Kept both, majority. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:13, 10 October 2009 (UTC)