The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

[Linguoboy]

As for sandhi effects in compounds, consider the common AmE pronunciation of "newspaper" with, um, voicing assimilation.

"Laptop" sounds homophonous with "labtop" to me. I imagine it's because both have [p̚] in the coda of the first syllable.

[Nortaneous]

ɫæʔp̚t́ɑʔp̚ ɫæːb̥̚tɑʔp

[akam chinjir]

I spent years of my life not sure if it was supposed to be "laptop" or "labtop."

[Travis B.]

Laptop /ˈlæpˌtɑp/ for me is clearly [ˈʟ̞ɛʔp̚ˌtʰaʔp]~[ˈɰɛʔp̚ˌtʰaʔp] and not [ˈʟ̞ɛːp̚ˌtʰaʔp]~[ˈɰɛːp̚ˌtʰaʔp], which is unambiguously [ˈlæbˌtɑp]; vowel length is very salient for me, and indeed, if people pronounce words with the wrong vowel length I am apt to hear the consonants wrong.

[anteallach]

How do you pronounce th in initial position in function words like then, that etc.?

I seem to have variation between the expected [ð] and an affricate [d̪ð].

[Zaarin]

Always /ð/ (which is also [ð]).

[Salmoneus]

I have the fricative when unemphasised, with reinforcement into an affricate under emphasis when not used as a function word.

So fricative in "I'm not sure that's true" and in "If you eat it, then I'll call the doctor", but sometimes affricate in "I like that! and "Sure, it may have been thay way then". Also it often strengthens when utterance-initial, and as a sandhi process after some consonants.

...is my initial thought.

[I have reinforcement less often with "there", but never with "their" or "they're"]


EDIT: I was going to add that I don't think I ever reinforce "than", but then I realised that it's ALWAYS reinforced (i.e. afficated) in comparisons when following an adjective. So it's always an affricate in larger than or... bugger. OK, it's always an affricate after 'larger', and it's often an affricate after other adjectives when then adjective is stressed, but it seems to depend on the adjective, and it's not an affricate for some otherwise affricating-adjectives in sufficiently deemphasised speech? This is complicated.

[bbbosborne]

also always /ð/, except in fast speech where it's really really backed and almost alveolar

[Travis B.]

I pronounce initial /ð/ as either a dentialveolar [t̪] (without aspiration), an interdental [ð] (particularly after vowels, as in of the, which is always pronounced with an interdental [ð]), or a dentialveolar [n̪] (after nasals); otherwise /ð/ is an interdental [ð] or, if under conditions where obstruents are normally devoiced IMD, an interdental [θ], even though I presume it would be a dentialveolar [n̪] were it to come after a nasal, even though I cannot think of any such cases word internally. I contrast initial /θ/ is either a dental (not dentialveolar) [t̪] (without aspiration) or an interdental [θ], and is an interdental [θ] word-internally, with the exception of with the, pronounced with a geminate unaspirated dental stop as [ˈwɘt̪ːə]. Note that the stopped and nasalized realizations are typically not found in higher registers.

[Xwtek]

Is non-English language on topic? Because I don't know how to pronounce the first w in wgiibwaadaa (this is Ojibwe). I can't pronounce it without inserting vowel (either [u] or [ə]) or pronouncing it as [u] instead.

[mèþru]

Is non-English language on topic?

Of course yes!

[Xwtek]

How you distiguish /ˈɪm.pɔɹt/ and /ɪmˈpɔɹt/. For me it sounds like [ɪ́m.pɔ̀ɹt] and [ɪ̀m.pɔ́ɹt]. Is it the only difference? Does Russian English (that have low tone at stressed syllable instead) heard like the stress is on all unstressed syllable and unstressed syllable lost stress?

[Pabappa]

Is non-English language on topic? Because I don't know how to pronounce the first w in wgiibwaadaa (this is Ojibwe).

Apparently its an orthographical 3rd person marker, etymologically present but no longer pronounced ... a silent letter.

÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷

Im curious about Phoenician, both for the original sense and for the sense of someone who lives in Phoenix, Arizona.

I've always said /fo'ni.ʃən/ for the original sense and never said the latter sense aloud. Wiktionary suggests both are in fact /fə'ni.ʃən/. I may have picked up my pronunciation in 4th or 5th grade and never changed it ... I associated it with the word "phonetics", perhaps because I learned about them creating an early alphabet. It's possible that my teacher made this same association and gave us the wrong pronunciation, but I can't specifically recall hearing any other pronunciation in my lifetime.

Is /fo'ni.ʃən/ common? Is there any other pronunciation that's common besides the one Wiktionary gives?

Does anybody distinguish between the two senses of the word? Probably most people don't make the connection between Phoenicia and Phoenix when they're first learning how to pronounce those words.

Thanks.

[Travis B.]

Considering that /ə/ and /oʊ/ commonly alternate, where the former is an unstressed counterpart to the latter, it would not surprise me if people pronounced Phoenician as both /fəˈniːʃən/ and /foʊˈniːʃən/; indeed, I myself use both pronunciations, depending on the exact degree to which I stress the word.

[akam chinjir]

I don't think it ever occurred to me that people from Phoenix might be called Phoenicians. (I've got schwa in the first syllables of both "Phonecian" and "phonetics.")

[mèþru]

I've never heard of that usage either. If I was talking about people from Phoenix, I would say "people from Phoenix"

[Salmoneus]

It wouldn't have occured to me to pronounce either 'Phoenix' or 'Phoenician' with /o/, as the spelling so clearly indicates /i/. Do Americans really say /fonIks/ (for the bird or the city (or the person)), or do you just have the /o/ in the adjective form?

Personally, I have /fi:'ni:Sn/, phonemically, but the first vowel is usually more like [@] due to standard unstressed vowel reduction.

[mèþru]

personally, I say [foʊ̯'nĭ.ʃi.ən] (not a syllabic n, I have those in other words). The stressed /i/ is shorter than the diphthong and the /i/ in the third syllable. It is lowered, but still phonetically closer to the prototypical /i/ than /ɪ/ of my speech.

[mèþru]

My parents say [fo'ni.ʃje̞n] (non-native accent) and everyone from around here says [foʊ̯'ni.ʃən], [foʊ̯'ni.ʃn̩], [fə'ni.ʃən] or [fə'ni.ʃn̩]. The schwas of the initial syllable still seems o-coloured, and the [oʊ̯]/[o] of my parents seem some what reduced.

[Travis B.]

It wouldn't have occured to me to pronounce either 'Phoenix' or 'Phoenician' with /o/, as the spelling so clearly indicates /i/. Do Americans really say /fonIks/ (for the bird or the city (or the person)), or do you just have the /o/ in the adjective form?

Personally, I have /fi:'ni:Sn/, phonemically, but the first vowel is usually more like [@] due to standard unstressed vowel reduction.

For me the bird or the city is ['fĩːnɘʔksʲ]; I only have /oʊ/ in the adjective.

(Note that /ə/ for me can be either [ə] or, more commonly, [ɘ], and can be a reduced form of both /iː/ and /oʊ/, so it is not inconceivable that in some dialects it went from /iː/ to /ə/ to, under the influence of spelling and a lack of awareness of its etymology, /oʊ/.)