Search found 192 matches
- Tue May 14, 2024 8:44 am
- Forum: Languages
- Topic: English questions
- Replies: 1406
- Views: 449587
Re: English questions
Here’s a really interesting English sentence I was presented with recently: 1. If I hadn’t’ve had that cake, it would’ve gone mouldy. I don't know exactly how acceptable I would judge it, but I can imagine hearing it. As far as syntax goes, I remember reading that some linguists have proposed that ...
- Thu Apr 18, 2024 10:19 am
- Forum: Languages
- Topic: English 'not' migration
- Replies: 8
- Views: 415
Re: English 'not' migration
Before I begin, I don't know if there's a correct term for the phenomenon I'm going to describe here, so I went with migration . Is it me, or is there currently a on-going change in the position of "not" in English sentences? In standard English grammar we all know that "I would not ...
- Tue Apr 09, 2024 12:56 am
- Forum: Languages
- Topic: Voiced fricatives in Germanic
- Replies: 14
- Views: 2321
Re: Voiced fricatives in Germanic
I'm aware of Lass's paper and am, as I said, "sympathetic to [the] belief" that West Saxon initial fricatives were voiced, though I think the evidence is insufficient to make a definitive judgement. This is why I talk about the "mainstream belief" that initial fricatives weren't...
- Mon Apr 08, 2024 1:07 am
- Forum: Languages
- Topic: Voiced fricatives in Germanic
- Replies: 14
- Views: 2321
Re: Voiced fricatives in Germanic
It has been argued that there was variation between dialects of Old English in the voicing of word-initial fricatives. I am personally sympathetic to this belief, but the mainstream view is that initial fricative voicing in the dialects of Southern England and the the south-western Midlands only oc...
- Wed Apr 03, 2024 9:43 pm
- Forum: Languages
- Topic: Voiced fricatives in Germanic
- Replies: 14
- Views: 2321
Re: Voiced fricatives in Germanic
As far as I know, Gothic shows no signs of voicing Proto-Germanic *s *ɸ *θ *x *xʷ. Instead, in Gothic [β ð ɣ] functioned as allophones of /b d g/, and Proto-Germanic *z was maintained as a distinct phoneme from *s (setting aside neutralization in word-final position or before an obstruent). So I'm c...
- Sun Mar 31, 2024 11:15 pm
- Forum: Languages
- Topic: Marginal distinctions
- Replies: 15
- Views: 651
Re: Marginal distinctions
/ð v b/ elision [...] cannot apply to new words I'm saying I somewhat doubt that this is true, but obviously I can't be certain of that. Of course, you have a better chance of accurately describing your own accent than I do, but I think it's possible that you might not have perfect awareness of eve...
- Sun Mar 31, 2024 3:04 pm
- Forum: Languages
- Topic: Marginal distinctions
- Replies: 15
- Views: 651
Re: Marginal distinctions
I have observed that at least in the English here there are complications with regard to the traditional NAE vowel distinctions. For instance, many of the distinctions merged in the Mary - merry - marry merger have been resurrected in a marginal fashion through consonant elisions and resulting vowe...
- Wed Feb 14, 2024 5:13 pm
- Forum: Languages
- Topic: English questions
- Replies: 1406
- Views: 449587
Re: English questions
It is normally taken as a given that /t/ before /n/ or /ən/~/ɪn/ in most NAE varieties is realized as [ʔ]. However, I just found a major exception - the present participle* of get , getting , which is commonly /ˈɡɛtən/, which I find is normally realize as [ˈɡ̥ɜɾɘ̃(ː)n] or [ɡ̥ɜnː] in the English I a...
- Sun Feb 11, 2024 7:51 pm
- Forum: Languages
- Topic: Linguistic Miscellany Thread
- Replies: 4692
- Views: 2063932
Re: Linguistic Miscellany Thread
Reading over Hyman's universals paper, he says that he "can see no principled way to rule out" theoretical phoneme inventories like #1 #2 pʰ tʰ kʰ p t k p t k f s x Because Rotokas has /p t k b d g/ (or /p t k β ɾ g/, same thing). But that got me thinking, is it true that all languages ha...
- Fri Feb 09, 2024 4:03 pm
- Forum: Languages
- Topic: Linguistic Miscellany Thread
- Replies: 4692
- Views: 2063932
Re: Linguistic Miscellany Thread
It's not just acc-. Here are some words in French with /ks/ or /gʒ/. (Sorry, the wordlist I grabbed had no accents.) acceder accelerer accent accepter acces accident occident succeder succes succinct vaccin suggerer These are likely all reborrowings, but that doesn't really explain anything... why ...
- Thu Nov 16, 2023 2:03 am
- Forum: Languages
- Topic: Pronunciation of Standard English in America (1919)
- Replies: 129
- Views: 334041
Re: Pronunciation of Standard English in America (1919)
[*] Missouri is commonly [mɪzˈuːrɪ], but sometimes [mɪsˈuːrɪ]; the vowel may also be [ʊ] instead of [uː] — i think the only time i've heard it with [uː] is in depeche mode's cover of "route 66", where it sticks out like a sore thumb Interesting, I'd never thought about the pronunciation b...
- Mon Nov 13, 2023 7:56 pm
- Forum: Languages
- Topic: On syllabification
- Replies: 25
- Views: 81726
Re: On syllabification
Why can’t we just say “English disprefers lax vowels in final open syllables”? It seems to me that if it’s word-internal and open that it doesn’t really care. You can say that. It's just not obvious that it is correct to analyze words like sitting as starting with an open syllable. The problem isn'...
- Sun Oct 08, 2023 7:27 pm
- Forum: Languages
- Topic: Language change in real time
- Replies: 34
- Views: 8893
Re: Language change in real time
I think the merger of CURE into FUR /ə˞~ɜ˞/ might not have been complete for my parents or grandparents, but it is for me. "CURE" is a bad lexical set to me because it treats /ʊr/ and /jʊr/ as the same when in fact they behave differently for me, and to my knowledge, for many North Americ...
- Sun Oct 08, 2023 3:24 am
- Forum: Languages
- Topic: Language change in real time
- Replies: 34
- Views: 8893
Re: Language change in real time
The /il/ > /Il/ change (e.g. "I fill bad about pilling the skin off electric ills") has gone from redneck coding to almost completely universal in North American English. I can't remember the last American I've met who doesn't do this, and so far not one of them has been aware that they d...
- Sat Sep 16, 2023 8:43 pm
- Forum: Languages
- Topic: The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread
- Replies: 1782
- Views: 4936336
Re: The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread
miracle /'mirəkəl/ ['miˑɚ̯ɹ ʋ ɘkɫ̩] illustrate /'ɪləstret/ ['ɪˑɫɘstɹ̥ ʋ ei̯t] irritate /'irətet/ ['iˑɚ̯ɹ ʋ ɘtʰei̯t] South Africa /'sau̯'θæfrəkʌ/ [saʊ̯'θafɹ ʋ ɘkə~saʊ'θafɹ ʋ ɘkʌ] (not homophonous with *"Sow Thafrica" because I pronounce South Africa as one word, with pre-voiceless clipping-...
- Thu Aug 31, 2023 11:28 pm
- Forum: Languages
- Topic: English questions
- Replies: 1406
- Views: 449587
Re: English questions
Does the phrase "to know how to do something" imply that you can actually do it, or could it also mean theoretical knowledge? In other words, would the statement "I know how to do a Fosbury flop, but I can't actually do it" make sense? It's an edge case, but I wouldn't find it i...
- Mon Aug 21, 2023 9:44 am
- Forum: Languages
- Topic: English questions
- Replies: 1406
- Views: 449587
Re: English questions
The OED only quotes Potter and White for "tiggy" (assuming I'm not missing anything on the awful new site). British English has many dialects; I'd imagine that White had plenty of material to draw from without needing to invent things out of whole cloth. That's not to say that I recognize ...
- Thu Aug 17, 2023 2:29 am
- Forum: Languages
- Topic: What do you call ...
- Replies: 413
- Views: 1018279
Re: What do you call ...
[A test would be to ask native speakers of English to speak the word hang backwards. I guess that few if any would respond, [hæŋ]. I may have to try this on some unsuspecting victims. The curious bit is that if the usual phonotactics is correct (and I think it is!) then the word can't be said backw...
- Mon Aug 14, 2023 5:17 am
- Forum: Languages
- Topic: On syllabification
- Replies: 25
- Views: 81726
Re: On syllabification
What we think of as syllables when we actually pronounce a word must be something different to phonological syllables, then. If introspection led to unanimous agreement on where syllable divisions go in English words, then we could use it as a criterion without much difficulty. But there doesn't se...
- Sat Aug 12, 2023 7:29 pm
- Forum: Languages
- Topic: On syllabification
- Replies: 25
- Views: 81726
Re: On syllabification
As Zompist said, there is no consensus among linguists about whether sitting is /sɪ.tɪŋ/, /sɪt.ɪŋ/, /sɪt.tɪŋ/, or (a fourth option) syllables simply don't exist. (Actually, some would argue that /ŋ/ is not a phoneme of English and that this word ends in /nɡ/, but that's a different topic.) Italian a...