The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

[Travis B.]

On that note, does anyone else here have congra/dʒ/ulate? (This one is notable to me as vowel length is not preserved; rather, the preceding vowel is long rather than short.)

I do, and it's a kind-of unusual case, it seems — nature (and other words in -ture, all of which could be given a reading pronunciation -cher/chir/chur and spatula have unvoiced yod-coalesced t.

Yes, I have na/tʃ/ure and spa/tʃ/ula, and I do not recall every hearing anyone having /dʒ/ in these sorts of words aside from congra/dʒ/ulate and related words (but not congra/t/s).

[bradrn]

On that note, does anyone else here have congra/dʒ/ulate? (This one is notable to me as vowel length is not preserved; rather, the preceding vowel is long rather than short.)

Yes, I do, though I’m not sure I see what’s so unusual about that.

[Travis B.]

On that note, does anyone else here have congra/dʒ/ulate? (This one is notable to me as vowel length is not preserved; rather, the preceding vowel is long rather than short.)

Yes, I do, though I’m not sure I see what’s so unusual about that.

It is the usual pronunciation I am used to, but there are many things unusual about what I am used to, so I just wanted to be sure. It is definitely an atypical sound change given the usual English diachronics in just about any English variety I know of.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I wonder if it's analogical with graduate, adulation, and similar-sounding words.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

From the English Questions thread, "melodramatic". I think mine's something like [mɛ.lɵʊ.d(ʒ)ɹʷə'mæ.dɨk̚].

[anteallach]

From the English Questions thread, "melodramatic". I think mine's something like [mɛ.lɵʊ.d(ʒ)ɹʷə'mæ.dɨk̚].

Same, other than predictable differences between our accents.

[Travis B.]

From the English Questions thread, "melodramatic". I think mine's something like [mɛ.lɵʊ.d(ʒ)ɹʷə'mæ.dɨk̚].

Same, other than predictable differences between our accents.

Same here - other than the regular differences between our dialects' phonologies, I have essentially the same.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

That's what I was imagining.

[Darren]

I'd say [ˌmeɫəd͡ʒɻʷəˈmæɾəʔk̚], with a schwa for the second vowel.

[Travis B.]

I'd say [ˌmeɫəd͡ʒɻʷəˈmæɾəʔk̚], with a schwa for the second vowel.

I have [o̞] and [ə] in free variation that position, actually. Unstressed /oʊ/ is generally like that for me.

[Estav]

Apparently "wardrobe" etymologically decomposes into ward + robe (although the compounding happened in French). That never occurred to me as I don't syllabify it accordingly: I always mentally pronounce it as "war-drobe".

[Travis B.]

Apparently "wardrobe" etymologically decomposes into ward + robe (although the compounding happened in French). That never occurred to me as I don't syllabify it accordingly: I always mentally pronounce it as "war-drobe".

I have /ˈwɔrdroʊb/ for wardrobe, which is typical of NAE; specifically, I pronounce it as as [ˈwɔːʁˤtʃɻʁo̞ːp], and I do not perceive it as a bimorphemic word myself.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Apparently "wardrobe" etymologically decomposes into ward + robe (although the compounding happened in French). That never occurred to me as I don't syllabify it accordingly: I always mentally pronounce it as "war-drobe".

I have /ˈwɔrdroʊb/ for wardrobe, which is typical of NAE; specifically, I pronounce it as as [ˈwɔːʁˤtʃɹʁo̞ːp], and I do not perceive it as a bimorphemic word myself.

I have it the same phonemically, though phonetically it's ['wɔɹˌdɹoːʊb̚~'wɔɹˌdʒɹoːʊb̚]; I do perceive it as somewhat bimorphemic, with the -drobe being a sort-of cranberry morpheme.

[anteallach]

What about bedroom? It's common at least in BrE to have affrication there in spite of the obvious morpheme boundary; in his syllabification article Wells says "although bedroom tends to be pronounced as if morphologically solid". He gives /ˈbedr.ʊm/ (yes, with the syllable boundary after the /dr/); I would transcribe my own pronunciation as [ˈbɛdʐɹuːm]. Cf headroom, where I don't have affrication.

[Travis B.]

What about bedroom? It's common at least in BrE to have affrication there in spite of the obvious morpheme boundary; in his syllabification article Wells says "although bedroom tends to be pronounced as if morphologically solid". He gives /ˈbedr.ʊm/ (yes, with the syllable boundary after the /dr/); I would transcribe my own pronunciation as [ˈbɛdʐɹuːm]. Cf headroom, where I don't have affrication.

I have bedroom /ˈbɛdrum/ [ˈb̥ɜːtʃɻʁʉ̃(ː)m] and headroom /ˈhɛdrum/ [ˈhɜːtʁˤũ(ː)m] myself. I certainly don't analyze /dr/ in bedroom as part of the coda!

[Linguoboy]

I don't really notice much affrication in my speech and certainly not across historical morpheme boundaries like this.

Chicago has the word "front room" for the parlour/living room/sitting room (normally located at the very front of a Chicago apartment unless there's a porch/sunroom in front of it) and locals pronounce it with affrication. I have the word in my idiolect now but I don't use the local pronunciation except as a joke.

[Travis B.]

I don't really notice much affrication in my speech and certainly not across historical morpheme boundaries like this.

Chicago has the word "front room" for the parlour/living room/sitting room (normally located at the very front of a Chicago apartment unless there's a porch/sunroom in front of it) and locals pronounce it with affrication. I have the word in my idiolect now but I don't use the local pronunciation except as a joke.

I can pronounce front room both ways - as [ˈfʁˤʌ̃ʔˌʁˤũ(ː)m] or as [ˈfʁˤʌ̃ˌtʃɻʁʉ̃(ː)m].

[Travis B.]

I also have [ˈʁˤʷɜˌɕtɕɻʁʉ̃(ː)m] for restroom. (Yes [ɕtɕɻʁ] is my regular realization of /str/; note that [tɕ] and [ɻʁ] ought to have tie bars...)

[anteallach]

What about bedroom? It's common at least in BrE to have affrication there in spite of the obvious morpheme boundary; in his syllabification article Wells says "although bedroom tends to be pronounced as if morphologically solid". He gives /ˈbedr.ʊm/ (yes, with the syllable boundary after the /dr/); I would transcribe my own pronunciation as [ˈbɛdʐɹuːm]. Cf headroom, where I don't have affrication.

I have bedroom /ˈbɛdrum/ [ˈb̥ɜːtʃɻʁʉ̃(ː)m] and headroom /ˈhɛdrum/ [ˈhɜːtʁˤũ(ː)m] myself. I certainly don't analyze /dr/ in bedroom as part of the coda!

OK, so you have a similar pattern here, and I wouldn't analyse /dr/ as the coda either. As I've said before Wells's discussion of /tr/ and /dr/, including that example, is one of the relatively few parts of that article I can't relate to; for me it's clear the /r/ is in the following syllable and the affricate (which for my own speech I think is best analysed as having become /dʒ/ phonemically) could be reasonably assigned to either syllable. Wells's description suggests that /tr/ and /dr/ are close to phoneme status in their own right for his variety of RP.

I don't have affrication in either front room or restroom; the latter isn't really used in my dialect anyway. One other curious example where I do have affrication is the brand name Land Rover; indeed I recall being slightly surprised the first time I noticed it was actually written as two words.

[Travis B.]

I don't have affrication in either front room or restroom; the latter isn't really used in my dialect anyway. One other curious example where I do have affrication is the brand name Land Rover; indeed I recall being slightly surprised the first time I noticed it was actually written as two words.

One curious example of me misanalyzing a word as a kid is [ˈwɘ̃ːn(t)ˌtʃʰɘ(ː)ɯ̯], which I analyzed as windshield /ˈwɪndˌʃild/ rather than the correct windchill /ˈwɪndˌtʃɪl/ because there's very little difference between /ndʃ/ and /ndtʃ/ phonetically IMD, because final /ld/ is unstable IMD and is readily realized without the stop (so hence my mind easily added a /d/ that did not exist), and because the distinction between /il/ and /ɪl/ is not very salient IMD (e.g. one can very often hear laxing in r[ɪ]lly here).