Linguistic Miscellany Thread

[Linguoboy]

For quick questions, minor observations, and anything else language-related that's too trivial to merit its own thread.

Today a friend said "Bahai" and he had to repeat it twice before I could parse it. The /ə/ in the initial syllable was so fleeting it just sounded like "pie" to me.

[zyxw59]

A fun thing I've noticed in my idiolect is that I pronounce "egg" and "leg" with /eɪ/, even tho I have /ɛ/ in all other "-eg" words.

[Vijay]

Today a friend said "Bahai" and he had to repeat it twice before I could parse it. The /ə/ in the initial syllable was so fleeting it just sounded like "pie" to me.

Bhai!

[cedh]

A topic in German phonology that is relatively often discussed among non-linguists is whether people from different areas distinguish /eː/ (typically written e, ee or eh) and /ɛː/ (typically written ä or äh), or merge these two long vowels into /eː/ (and whether a distinction is possibly just a spelling pronunciation). The merger is most common in the north, but I've recently come across a study that reports striking variation in the southwest too: 80% of respondents in Nagold, Baden-Württemberg, distinguished the two sounds, whereas 100% of respondents in Stuttgart, just 50km away, merged them. Part of this must be small-sample bias because Stuttgart is a big city that surely has some inhabitants without the merger, but anyway.

As for myself, I seem to consistently distinguish these sounds everywhere except before /ʁ/, where they both come out as something like [eː͡ɐ̯].

[Linguoboy]

The merger is most common in the north, but I've recently come across a study that reports striking variation in the southwest too

Link?

I know that many traditional dialects in B-W have a contrast here, but my recollection from my time in Freiburg is that the city dialect has merged them.

[Acid Badger]

As for myself, I seem to consistently distinguish these sounds everywhere except before /ʁ/, where they both come out as something like [eː͡ɐ̯].

That's interesting because it's the other way round for me: merger everywhere except before /r/. I'm from Hesse, originally.

The merger is most common in the north, but I've recently come across a study that reports striking variation in the southwest too

Link?

Seconding!

[Travis B.]

As I have mentioned previously, my idiolect has marked palatalization of /t/ in quite a few words where GA lacks it, and I notice that at least my mother has this as well. (I can confirm she pronounces sister as [ˈsɘɕtɕʁ̩(ː)].) But one word in particular that sticks out which I notice myself having palatalization is tarantula, which has not only the usual palatalization of historical /t/ before /j/ but also palatalization of the initial /t/, as [tɕʰʁ̩ːˈʁɛ̃tʃɯːɰə(ː)].

[Vijay]

Not sure this discussion from the old forum really warrants its own thread, so I'm continuing it here instead:

Indians definitely learn very formal English in school and tend towards British English usage. Of course this is changing due to American media becoming more and more pervasive, but I doubt the school curriculum has kept pace with this trend. Some Indians try to sound more American after moving here, but they're the exception rather than the norm, and it's probably near impossible for them to shake off everything they learned in school.

This is interesting to me since I recently spent the weekend with a Gujarati friend and if not for his /v/ you might think he'd been born here. I don't recall a single Britishism in his speech.

To me at least, the longer an Indian has been in the US the more likely they are to sound like a native English-speaker and the more likely they are to sound American rather than British. I have encountered Indians who sounded like Americans aside from occasional phonological details (like their pronunciation of /v/ and /w/), and I have encountered Indians that were utterly unintelligible before I learned to understand the phonology of Indian English (e.g. learning to understand [p t k b d g ɾ] as /p t k b d g r/).

You mean [p ʈ k b ɖ g ɾ r], right?

While this generalization may work as a rule of thumb, I think the reality is actually more complex than that. For example, I think there is a generation gap at play here as well, and older immigrants are less likely to sound American than younger ones regardless of when they immigrated. My parents immigrated earlier than most and have spent most of their lives here in Austin by now, and my dad even did high school in Boston, yet they both grew up in India and still have unmistakably Indian accents (and yes, some features of British English usage), as do the vast majority of Indian immigrants I know. I think it's also possible that older immigrants have a very different view of Westernization compared to younger ones and that this may also play a role, not only in terms of how likely Indian immigrants are to sound American but also in terms of how likely they are to hang out with Americans (as opposed to fellow Indian immigrants) and how intimate their relationships with Americans are. Younger Indians seem to think Westernization is cool and trendy. Older ones are more likely to have rawer memories of the aftermath of colonization by Westerners, if not of colonization itself, and perhaps to see Westernization as more of a threat than a blessing.

I also thought it might be useful to post some videos of my mom and some of her friends speaking English. All of them are Malayalee, probably all more recent immigrants, and I know all of them as "aunties." This is my mom, introduced at the beginning by the cameraman's wife, Lizy Aunty:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYpNjl6YVVU

This is Shirley Aunty, supposedly my mom's best friend. I've noticed her trying a lot more to sound American than my mom does:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJgsA4vmG4s

And this is Sarita Aunty and Suja Aunty, also introduced by Lizy Aunty. I just barely know Suja Aunty whereas I've known both Lizy Aunty and Sarita Aunty at least since I was a teenager and Shirley Aunty I believe almost as long as I've lived in Austin, but I think Suja Aunty sounds a lot more American than most of the aunties I know/most of my mom's Indian friends:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Krhx-XcCNIU

[Aftovota]

As I have mentioned previously, my idiolect has marked palatalization of /t/ in quite a few words where GA lacks it, and I notice that at least my mother has this as well. (I can confirm she pronounces sister as [ˈsɘɕtɕʁ̩(ː)].) But one word in particular that sticks out which I notice myself having palatalization is tarantula, which has not only the usual palatalization of historical /t/ before /j/ but also palatalization of the initial /t/, as [tɕʰʁ̩ːˈʁɛ̃tʃɯːɰə(ː)].

That's not unexpected palatalization so much as syncope then retraction before /r/, like in <tree> [tʃʰɹiː], <straight> [stʃɹeɪ̯ʔ]~[ʃtʃɹeɪ̯ʔ], or <dry> [dʒɹɑɪ̯]. If I dropped the first schwa in <tarantula> I'd produce something like [ˈtʃʰɹæ̃ʔtʃɫ̩ə].

EDIT: That pronunciation of <sister> is unusual, though, I agree. Also, I forgot about a source of historical /j/.

[cedh]

The merger is most common in the north, but I've recently come across a study that reports striking variation in the southwest too

Link?

Seconding!

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/ful ... stul.12062

[Linguoboy]

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/ful ... stul.12062

Ich danke dir!

I found this an odd sentence: "Some government officials wonder whether anyone organised the protests—possibly fuel smugglers, political rivals or powerful families that benefit from the subsidies."

Using "anyone" in that first clause implies to me that the default assumption is that someone did and that the dissenting view is that the protests were unorganised. But the conclusion of the sentence implies the opposite, that the prevailing few is that they were spontaneous. IMD that first clause should be "Some government officials wonder whether someone may have organised the protests..."

[statelessnation]

redacted

[zompist]

I found this an odd sentence: "Some government officials wonder whether anyone organised the protests—possibly fuel smugglers, political rivals or powerful families that benefit from the subsidies."

Using "anyone" in that first clause implies to me that the default assumption is that someone did and that the dissenting view is that the protests were unorganised. But the conclusion of the sentence implies the opposite, that the prevailing few is that they were spontaneous. IMD that first clause should be "Some government officials wonder whether someone may have organised the protests..."

I'm not sure someone/anyone work that way for me. E.g.

(1) Bill wonders if someone has read his book.
(2) Bill wonders if anyone has read his book.

For me, (2) means that Bill is explicitly considering the proposition "∃x: x read my book". Similarly, the "government officials" are wondering about "∃x: x organized the protests". I don't think either sentence implies that the proposition is false, though it may implicate that it is. (That is, Bill may lean toward the view that he has no readers.)

(1) could mean the same, it could be talking about a particular someone, or (I think) that there's an implicature that the reader exists. Compare the continuations:

(1a) Bill wonders if someone has read his book. He hopes they liked it.
(2a) Bill wonders if anyone has read his book. He hopes they liked it.

Both are a little weird, but (1a) seems better to me.

[Travis B.]

As I have mentioned previously, my idiolect has marked palatalization of /t/ in quite a few words where GA lacks it, and I notice that at least my mother has this as well. (I can confirm she pronounces sister as [ˈsɘɕtɕʁ̩(ː)].) But one word in particular that sticks out which I notice myself having palatalization is tarantula, which has not only the usual palatalization of historical /t/ before /j/ but also palatalization of the initial /t/, as [tɕʰʁ̩ːˈʁɛ̃tʃɯːɰə(ː)].

That's not unexpected palatalization so much as syncope then retraction before /r/, like in <tree> [tʃʰɹiː], <straight> [stʃɹeɪ̯ʔ]~[ʃtʃɹeɪ̯ʔ], or <dry> [dʒɹɑɪ̯]. If I dropped the first schwa in <tarantula> I'd produce something like [ˈtʃʰɹæ̃ʔtʃɫ̩ə].

EDIT: That pronunciation of <sister> is unusual, though, I agree. Also, I forgot about a source of historical /j/.

The difference is that the /r/ in my tarantula is syllabic, and normally syllabic /r/ does not trigger retraction and affrication of /t/ in NAE. Similar examples for me include fac[tʃ]ory, re[ɕtɕ]aurant, and refrac[tʃ]ory.

[Aftovota]

The difference is that the /r/ in my tarantula is syllabic, and normally syllabic /r/ does not trigger retraction and affrication of /t/ in NAE. Similar examples for me include fac[tʃ]ory, re[ɕtɕ]aurant, and refrac[tʃ]ory.

I missed that. Yeah, that's unusual.

[Nerulent]

In languages with case which are both Ergative-Absolutive and Secundative, does the role of a 'Donor' typically get marked in the Ergative case or do they typically show it some other way?

The donor in a typical active construction is the agent, so it should take ergative case while the recipient takes absolutive. An example in Greenlandic from Wikipedia's page on secundative languages:

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Uuma     Niisi aningaasa-nik  tuni-vaa.
that.erg Nisi  money-instr.pl give-ind.3s/3s
'He gave Nisi money.'

[Linguoboy]

Interesting to see that English "the world over" has an exact parallel in Swedish världen över.

[Ares Land]

Interesting to see that English "the world over" has an exact parallel in Swedish världen över.

Two curious sound changes, regarding final

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 [i]

in French.
Lots of people, of all ages, have

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[i] -> [iç]

word finally. I caught myself doing too, to my consternation (it is a little annoying).
My fourteen-years old niece has

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[i] -> [eɪ] 

though. Interesting in that American English does the exact same thing.

[Travis B.]

Pronouncing final /i/ as [e] is primarily a singing thing in NAE, not something in normal everyday speech.

[Ryusenshi]

Lots of people, of all ages, have

Code: Select all

[i] -> [iç]

word finally. I caught myself doing too, to my consternation (it is a little annoying).

Yeah, it's the sort of things you don't even realize until it's been pointed out. I'm trying to stop doing it as well.

Pronouncing final /i/ as [e] is primarily a singing thing in NAE, not something in normal everyday speech.

Oh yeah, a common feature of the "standard pop accent". Most noticeable in the word baby: "oh baby baby baby" [oʊ beɪbe beɪbe beɪbe]. Heck, even [beɪbɛ] isn't unheard of.