On Thu, 4 Nov 2004 18:17:03 +0100, Steven Williams <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>  --- "Pascal A. Kramm" <[log in to unmask]> [r\VUt_?]:
> > If someone here in Germany wants to imitate a French
> > dialect, he'll most notably omit the initial "h"
> > sound (e.g. turning "hotel" into "otel"), and
> > pronounce the German "ch" as "sh".
>
> Is [x] turned to [S] _all_ the time

ITYM "Is /x/ turned to [S] all the time"; in my opinion, you don't
have [x]'s that sometimes turn into [C]'s (does that even make sense?)
but rather /x/'s that are realised as [x] or [C] depending on the
environment. (If, indeed, they are one phoneme, which is, I believe,
still a question debated by Germanists.)

> or only when it appears palatalized as [C]?

I'd say that this is the case -- i.e. [C] -> [S] but not [x] -> [S].
Not sure what becomes of [x]; I'd be inclined to say that it remains
[x] in a mock French accent.

The accent/rhythm/melody also changes, though that's more difficult to notate.

> As a native speaker of
> English, I sometimes catch myself doing the same
> thing; i.e., I'd pronounce /machen/ pretty much
> perfectly, as ["ma.xn=], but I'd realize the phrase
> /ich dächte/ as [IS."dES.t@].

Interesting, especially since [C] occurs in my lect of English, as an
allophone of /hj/ (probably via something like [hj] > [h_j] > [C]) --
for example, in |huge|, roughly [Cu:dZ].

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <[log in to unmask]>
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