Zompist Bboard Again

Maybe English does not like initial /ts/? It doesn't -- but why not loan it as /s/ then? For instance, Japanese tsunami is commonly pronounced with initial /s/ here. On the other hand tsar is sometimes pronounced with /z/. This may have something to do with the alternative spelling with cz but it i...

jcb wrote: ↑Wed Apr 23, 2025 1:42 pm So, to you, what phoneme does it sound like Bill Gates is using in this clip?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=s ... rM1mcKmX_c

NEAR, i.e. I hear it as basically like my own pronunciation of the word, and not like a hypothetical "zirrow" with KIT.

Oh, most definitely, all of England and the Commonwealth afaik. For me "zero" is [ˈziɻɐy̯] and "hero" is [ˈhiːɻɐy̯], which you could analyse as /ɪ/ vs. /iː/, although you could also say /ɪ/ vs. /ɪə̯/ (i.e. Australian /i/ vs. /ɪː/). Do they distinguish /u/ and /U/ too? I can only...

Another thought: Are there any English speakers somewhere that distinguish /Ir/ and /ir/? Oh, most definitely, all of England and the Commonwealth afaik. For me "zero" is [ˈziɻɐy̯] and "hero" is [ˈhiːɻɐy̯], which you could analyse as /ɪ/ vs. /iː/, although you could also say /ɪ/...

Glass Half Baked wrote: ↑Mon Apr 07, 2025 7:32 pm How do you pronounce the semi-jocular plural of octopus, octopodes?
I am tempted to say ak.ta.po.diz, but I imagine some people might say ak.ta.po.diz, or even ak.ta.podz.

Second syllable stress, LOT, LOT, schwa, FLEECE.

It is extremely common to pronounce bury with the DRESS vowel in English varieties, ranging from most NAE varieties outside the Philadelphia area (which also undergo the Mary - merry - marry merger here) to RP. But what about the suffix -bury ? For me that also has the DRESS vowel ( Mary - merry - ...

The thing is that final /æ ɑ/ outside of monosyllables (and then mostly interjections) or possibly some learnèd French loans are forbidden in the English here. The only two words that end with /{/ that I can think of are BAA (the sound a sheep makes) and YEAH. Are there any others? For me I have /æ...

How do you pronounce "antifa"? I realized I have no idea of its English realization, as "fa" is short for "fascist", but the "fa" of "fascist" can't typically end a word (in Dutch we have no such problem, as we have /fa/, for the first syllable of f...

Nah, it is quite normal for English varieties to only aspirate fortis obstruents at the start of stressed and initial syllables. About the devoicing, though, in the dialect I speak natively lenis plosives tend to devoice in clusters, and obstruent clusters almost always agree in realized voicing wi...

The lack of aspiration is because it is not at the start of a stressed or initial syllable. Note that fortis-lenis pairs generally neutralize in the dialect here in non-initial members of obstruent clusters except where they begin a stressed syllable (as they lack a preceding vowel to undergo vowel...

Darren wrote: ↑Sun Mar 02, 2025 2:47 pm I have no vowel in the final syllable

[ˈdifəkʰɫ̩ʷʔ(t)]

Likewise, at least up to predictable differences between our accents. (My syllabic lateral there is not noticeably rounded, for instance.)

(1) Interesting, I never knew that you could pair the vowels like that. (Of course, doing so makes no sense in my dialect, so i would never come up with this system myself.) (2) So CURE rhymes with PORE??? (3) Are L2 English learners taught this system of organizing English vowels? Why yes it is. A...

Indeed, I thought that the spelling distinction between <o> and <au> was just an aesthetic spelling difference, like <ee> and <ea>, or <oCe> and <oa>, and nothing more. (Is there any dialect left in the English-speaking world that hasn't merged REED and READ, or LODE and LOAD?) I don't think <oCe> ...

I think it's really sure and sugar which are the exceptions here; the normal development of initial /sj/ is yod-dropping, or in some conservative dialects retention, not coalescence. My suspicion would be historical dialect mixing or, as sasasha says, a sound change which got started but never diffu...

I am familiar with the gulf - golf merger, where certain cases of historical /ʌl/ before a fortis obstruent (e.g. multi- , ultra- , ultimate , mulch , insult , bulk , etc.) merge with /ɔːl/ (RP /ɒl/) as [ɒo̯] myself, which affects the dialect here outside of spelling pronunciation. Conversely, bald...

Speaking of bald and bold , this is actually a genuine example in my speech. The two words are either merged or very nearly so, but bawled is definitely different and retains a normal THOUGHT vowel. What phoneme do you merge BALD-BOLD into? Do you merge COT-CAUGHT? My phonemic intuition thinks bald...

Speaking of bald and bold, this is actually a genuine example in my speech. The two words are either merged or very nearly so, but bawled is definitely different and retains a normal THOUGHT vowel.

Conditioned variation includes the combination ak , which gives: /ɛ/ in parts of western and south-western Yorkshire (e.g. /bɛk/ back ) /ai̯ ~ ɑi̯/ in south-central and southern Lancashire and northern Derbyshire (/slai̯k/ slack ) I have actually heard back with something like [ai], from a speaker ...

I hadn't heard of this split before, but it doesn't particularly surprise me; there are several examples of allophonic splits where the normally word-final allophone continues to be used before a suffix. One reasonably well-known example is in the Scottish Vowel Length Rule, where vowels are normall...

In my dialect, both 'green pepper' and 'red pepper' refer exclusively to bell peppers, and 'bell pepper' is only used by pedants. I'm not sure what you're referring to with 'red pepper'. Likewise. Possibly his red pepper is what I know as cayenne pepper , which for me usually refers to a powdered s...