The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

[Kuchigakatai]

Does any of you pronounce "nearby, thereby, thereto, herewith, whereas, hereafter, thereof", with penultimate stress? I'm asking because I find it strange that these type of adverb+preposition compounds tend to be primarily stressed on the second morpheme, since most compounds of two short morphemes in English tend to place stress on the first morpheme.

I particularly wonder about "nearby" when used as an "adjective" (or modifier in a multi-stressed compound, hard to say what it is) before a noun: "in nearby countries". Does anyone have [ɪn ˈniɚbaɪ ˈkʰɐntɹ̥iz] here?

Dictionaries list "thereabout" and "wherefore" as stressed on the first syllable. Some also list "thereabout" with stress on -bout- though, and "wherefore" as a compound was maybe just enough idiomatic / semantically obscure for it to undergo stress correction. I mean, the thing is even spelled with -e, even though it's literally where+for, cf. the spellings of all+so > also, all+most > almost, all+one > alone --the last one is pronounced very differently of course.

TIL that Columbus, Ohio lies at the confluence of the Scioto and Olentangy rivers. I got the pronunciation of "Scioto" right on my second guess (my natural urge is to pronounce it as if it were Italian) but I munged "Olentangy". Let's see how the rest of you do!

I'd expect "Scioto" to be [saɪˈoʊtoʊ, ʃaɪ-, si-, ʃi-]. Possibly, but a lot less likely, with [-tə] or antepenultimate stress [ˈsaɪətoʊ, ˈʃaɪ-].

For "Olentangy", I'd expect [ˈoʊlənˌtʰæŋi, ˌɑɫ-], possibly, but a bit less likely, with [-ˌtʰɑŋ-].

[Linguoboy]

I particularly wonder about "nearby" when used as an "adjective" (or modifier in a multi-stressed compound, hard to say what it is) before a noun: "in nearby countries". Does anyone have [ɪn ˈniɚbaɪ ˈkʰɐntɹ̥iz] here?

I do. "Néarby countries" vs "countries nearbý" is a consistent contrast in my speech.

Does any of you pronounce "nearby, thereby, thereto, herewith, whereas, hereafter, thereof", with penultimate stress?

It's a bit tricky to say for some of these, as they're not part of my active vocabulary so my pronunciation might be influenced by the scansion of the passage where they appear. But I default to penultimate in all cases. Thereby sounds the most natural with final stress, probably due to analogy with nearby. Whereas and hereafter are both words I use occasionally. I can stress them as "whereás" and "héreafter", but it sounds a bit forced in either case.

Dictionaries list "thereabout" and "wherefore" as stressed on the first syllable.

Agreed.

[bradrn]

Does any of you pronounce "nearby, thereby, thereto, herewith, whereas, hereafter, thereof", with penultimate stress? I'm asking because I find it strange that these type of adverb+preposition compounds tend to be primarily stressed on the second morpheme, since most compounds of two short morphemes in English tend to place stress on the first morpheme.

For me, all of them are stressed on the final syllable (except for adjectival nearby).

I particularly wonder about "nearby" when used as an "adjective" (or modifier in a multi-stressed compound, hard to say what it is) before a noun: "in nearby countries". Does anyone have [ɪn ˈniɚbaɪ ˈkʰɐntɹ̥iz] here?

That’s what I have.

Dictionaries list "thereabout" and "wherefore" as stressed on the first syllable. Some also list "thereabout" with stress on -bout- though, and "wherefore" as a compound was maybe just enough idiomatic / semantically obscure for it to undergo stress correction. I mean, the thing is even spelled with -e, even though it's literally where+for, cf. the spellings of all+so > also, all+most > almost, all+one > alone --the last one is pronounced very differently of course.

I have thereabóut, wherefóre.

I particularly wonder about "nearby" when used as an "adjective" (or modifier in a multi-stressed compound, hard to say what it is) before a noun: "in nearby countries". Does anyone have [ɪn ˈniɚbaɪ ˈkʰɐntɹ̥iz] here?

I do. "Néarby countries" vs "countries nearbý" is a consistent contrast in my speech.

I have that contrast as well.

[Estav]

For me:

"Nearby" is a double-stressed word like "thirteen", etc. (See John Wells's blog post here.) It is accented on the last syllable in isolation and as the last word in a phrase; it can sound like it's accented on the first syllable (I think it could alternatively maybe be characterized as just accentless) when it precedes a noun (as in "nearby cities"), maybe in particular a noun with stress on the first syllable. (I think "nearby reporters" and "thirteen reporters" don't always have an accent on the second syllable of the first word, but I feel like they could.) The phrases "far off", "far away" and "close up" behave the same way.

"Thereby" and "whereas" feel like they can only be accented on the first syllable. This is the case even when the following syllable is unstressed; e.g. "will thereby reveal" or "whereas the other". The vowel in the second syllable of "whereas" can be reduced; it's harder to tell with "thereby" since it's a diphthong, but I think it could have a certain amount of reduction as well (like the second syllable of "always"), although not to the extent of ever merging with the happy vowel for me normally. The words "therefore" and "hereby" also are like this.

"Hereafter" is accented on the second syllable. Accenting the first syllable sounds odd to me. I think I very rarely use it.

I would only use "thereof", "thereto" when reading (or I guess trying to imitate) something written in an archaic style. They are accented on the final syllable; I don't know if this could change depending on context as with "nearby" because they usually come in phrase-final position.

[bradrn]

What about these?

jewel
dual
duel

And some linguistic terms I’ve been wondering about:

nominative
accusative
ergative
absolutive
genitive
alveolar
velar
uvular
pharyngeal

[Travis B.]

jewel /dʒul/ [tɕʉ̯uːʊ̯]
dual /dul/ [tʲʉ̯uːʊ̯]
duel /dul/ [tʲʉ̯uːʊ̯]
nominative /ˈnɑmənəˌtɪv/ [ˈnãːmɘ̃ːnɘˌtʰɘːf]
accusative /əˈkjuzəˌtɪv/ [ɘˈcʰjʉ̯uːzɘˌtʰɘːf]
ergative /ˈɜrɡəˌtɪv/ [ˈʁ̩ːɡɘˌtʰɘːf]
absolutive /ˌæbsəˈluˌtɪv/ [ˌɛːpsɯːˈʟ̞uˌtʰɘːf]
genitive /ˈdʒɛnəˌtɪv/ [ˈtʃɜ̃ːnɘˌtʰɘːf]
alveolar /ˌælˈvilər/ [ˌɛːɤ̯ˈviːɯ̯ʁ̩(ː)]
velar /ˈvilər/ [ˈviːɯ̯ʁ̩(ː)]
uvular /ˈjuvjələr/ [ˈjʉ̯uːvjəːɤ̯ʁ̩(ː)]
pharyngeal /fəˈrɪndʒiəl/ [fʁ̩ːˈʁɘ̃ːntʃiːɯ(ː)]

[Ryusenshi]

If I run into Peter Doodson, remind me to smack him for calling the regular CD box a jewel case, not noticing that for some people it's homophonous with dual case.

[Travis B.]

If I run into Peter Doodson, remind me to smack him for calling the regular CD box a jewel case, not noticing that for some people it's homophonous with dual case.

The thing is, considering that Peter Doodson is English, he might be or might know one of those people.

[Darren]

How do you pronounce two or more consecutive unstressed [ɾ]'s?

e.g.
edited it (also edited it again)
started it
hated it
quantitative

etc.

[Travis B.]

edited it [ˈɜːːɘ̯ɾɘʔ]
edited it again [ˈɜːːɘ̯ɾɘːˈɡɜ̃ːn]
started it [ˈsʲtʲʌʁɘɾɘʔ]
hated it [ˈheːɘ̯ɾɘʔ]
quantitative [ˌkʰwãːɘ̯̃ˈtʰeɘːf]

[Pabappa]

I use the flap no matter how many there are. "Ed'd edited it idiotically" etc. Both for /t/ and /d/. However, for me the word quantitative only flaps the third t, perhaps because of stress rules.

[bradrn]

How do you pronounce two or more consecutive unstressed [ɾ]'s?

e.g.
edited it (also edited it again)
started it
hated it
quantitative

etc.

Oddly enough, as best as I can tell, I seem to replace the vowel with creaky voice here (except when there’s a nasal):

[ˈe̞d͡d̰tˢɘɾɘtˢ]
[ˈe̞d͡d̰tˢɘˈɾɘɾɘˈɡe̞n]
[ˈstɑˑd͡d̰͡dɘtˢ]
[ɦæ͡id͡d̰͡dɘtˢ]]
[ˌkʷwɔ.n̩ˈtˢæ͡itˢɘv]

(By [d͡d̰], I mean that I geminate the [d] to twice its normal length but have creaky voice for the second half. Similarly for [d͡d̰͡d].)

And Pabappa’s example:

[ˈe̞d͡d̰ˈe̞d͡d̰tˢɘɾɘɾˌɪɾiˈɔtˢɪkɬi]

[Travis B.]

I use the flap no matter how many there are. "Ed'd edited it idiotically" etc. Both for /t/ and /d/. However, for me the word quantitative only flaps the third t, perhaps because of stress rules.

[ˈɜːtː ˈɜːːɘ̯ɾɘːɾ ɘʔ ˌɘːjːˈaːɘ̯kɰi(ː)]

[Kuchigakatai]

Crystal et al.'s Dictionary of Modern English Usage (2009) says that "valkyrie" is pronounced either /ˈvælkəɹi/ or /vælˈkɪɹi/:



What do you guys have?

[Pabappa]

The first. I learned that word in 5th grade music class, and I never really questioned the pronunciation. I dont think Ive heard any other pronunciation, though its possible that Ive never heard it said out loud at all since then.

[bradrn]

I have /ˈvælkəɹi/ as well — although I’m not sure I’ve ever heard the word spoken out loud. (It’s not the sort of word you use a lot in everyday conversation.)

[Kuchigakatai]

I found that interesting because I think I've heard /vælˈkɪɹi/ more often than the other one in YouTube videos about Fire Emblem videogames, in which the word comes up often.

Also interestingly, the Fandom.com page reports that in the FE9 and FE10 games the word is written 戦乙女 in Japanese, with ヴァルキュリア varukyuria on top as furigana. That's 戦 'war' + 乙女 'lady (poetic word for a young woman)', which you'd normally expect to be pronounced sen + otome. I'm aware the Japanese have a penchant for non-standard kanji readings and rendering English words with such, but maaaaan.

[Travis B.]

I have the pronunciation /ˈvɔlkri/ in complete absence of any direction as to how the word is supposed to be pronounced.

[Linguoboy]

I have the pronunciation /ˈvɔlkri/ in complete absence of any direction as to how the word is supposed to be pronounced.

And I have /ˈvælkri/. I don't recall ever hearing anyone with penultimate stress on this word (which I do hear occasionally, since I know enthusiasts of both Norse mythology and grand opera).

[Jonlang]

I'd say I pronounce it as /ˈval.kə.ˌɹi/ - or maybe with the /a/ somewhere between /a/ and /æ/.