English questions

[anteallach]

Does anyone else have this split (ignore the nasalization and length)?:

pom: [pʰã(ː)m]
palm: [pʰɑ̃(ː)m]
pall: [pʰɒ(ː)o̯]
comm: [kʰã(ː)m]
calm: [kʰɑ̃(ː)m]
call: [kʰɒ(ː)o̯]

Received Pronunciation has a 3-way vowel split of CVC words here (at least, using Tom as the first member), and it survives in my English, which I think is fairly standard. (I don't have the LOT-CLOTH split.)

That is to be expected, though, since RP isn't father-bother merged, whereas my English, like practically all NAE varieties outside Eastern New England, is father-bother merged, so there is not supposed to be any distinction between pom/palm, comm/calm, bomb/balm, etc. The standard answer to this is "spelling pronunciation", but it just doesn't feel like spelling pronunciation to me, it's just too systematic and regular. My thought is what if there were English varieties outside Standard English in which the /l/ in these -<alm> words survived, which then spread in more recent times aided by the influence of orthography rather than as spelling pronunciation alone.

IIRC some of the traditional dialects of SW England retain /l/ in -alm words.

[Nortaneous]

FWIW this must be an old sound change, not an ongoing one, because it's not hard to get an actual [al], e.g. in doll.

Are "doll" and "dal" (as in "dal makhani", etc.) homophones?

I actually don't know. If there's a pom-palm split, "doll" has the "palm" vowel and "dal" has the "pom" vowel, I think?

[Travis B.]

FWIW this must be an old sound change, not an ongoing one, because it's not hard to get an actual [al], e.g. in doll.

Are "doll" and "dal" (as in "dal makhani", etc.) homophones?

I actually don't know. If there's a pom-palm split, "doll" has the "palm" vowel and "dal" has the "pom" vowel, I think?

Depending on how severely I choose to anglicize it, dal as in dal makhani has the vowel in pal, i.e. [ɛ], or the vowel in pom, i.e. [a], while doll has either the vowel in pom, in the common case, or the vowel in pall, i.e. [ɒ], less frequently, and not the vowel in palm, i.e. [ɑ].

[zompist]

[Are "doll" and "dal" (as in "dal makhani", etc.) homophones?

For me, yes. (Also Dahl.)

I actually don't know. If there's a pom-palm split, "doll" has the "palm" vowel and "dal" has the "pom" vowel, I think?

FWIW Wiktiionary has /dɑl/, /dɔl/ for doll for General American.

[WarpedWartWars]

Are "doll" and "dal" (as in "dal makhani", etc.) homophones?

I actually don't know. If there's a pom-palm split, "doll" has the "palm" vowel and "dal" has the "pom" vowel, I think?

I seem to have that pom-palm split (plus even if I don't pronounce the /l/ in "palm", it still inverse-lateralizes (ok i made that term up but it should be clear enough) the /ɑ/), and for me, "doll" has PALM and "dal" has POM. Also, "Dahl" can have either.

[abahot]

In my dialect of English (Western American English), the word "the" is pronounced consistently as [ðə] before consonant-initial words and [ði:] before vowel-initial ones. I was under the impression that this distinction was widespread, but I've recently found that many speakers of Midwestern and East Coast American English do not have this distinction, pronouncing it [ðə] in all environments. Does anyone have any information on where the allophonic distinction of "the" does and does not exist?

[Travis B.]

In my dialect of English (Western American English), the word "the" is pronounced consistently as [ðə] before consonant-initial words and [ði:] before vowel-initial ones. I was under the impression that this distinction was widespread, but I've recently found that many speakers of Midwestern and East Coast American English do not have this distinction, pronouncing it [ðə] in all environments. Does anyone have any information on where the allophonic distinction of "the" does and does not exist?

I have both [ə] and [i] in the but they do not have a strictly allomorphic relationship to what they precede in practice. [i] is common before vowels and [ə] is common before consonants, but their relationship is not that simple, as [i] is also more common when stressed regardless of what it precedes, and vice versa [ə] when unstressed. I think many English-speakers are like me in this regard overall (even though don't call me on that, as I haven't conducted any studies or fieldwork here )

[Nortaneous]

I'm still confused by doll/dal/Dahl. I feel like "dal" should be homophonous with "Dahl" but not "doll", but I also can't imagine what "doll" would be if not homophonous - [dɔɫ] feels too New England. But I've spent a lot of time in the father-bother-unmerged parts of the US.

The last time I was in Boston, I saw a Dunkin Donuts promotion for something called a "Gronk Chomp", which works for them but not for me. (The Boston dialect has - and this is still very much alive - the cot-caught merger but not the father-bother one, so 'chomp' has THOUGHT instead of FATHER.)

In my dialect of English (Western American English), the word "the" is pronounced consistently as [ðə] before consonant-initial words and [ði:] before vowel-initial ones. I was under the impression that this distinction was widespread, but I've recently found that many speakers of Midwestern and East Coast American English do not have this distinction, pronouncing it [ðə] in all environments. Does anyone have any information on where the allophonic distinction of "the" does and does not exist?

I think it's just receding.

[Raphael]

What's the usual practise for specifying or not specifying the type of ball when talking about balls in English?

In German, you only specify what kind of ball it is when that's not already clear from the context. When it is clear from the context, you basically always just say "Ball". (When talking about the utensil that is. The names of the various sports are a different matter.)

In English, or at least some dialects of English, that's apparently not always the case. Long ago, I was watching a game in one of the oval ball sports - I've forgotten which one - and at one point, one of the commentators said something like "That's good handling of the football". And I was like, "What do you mean, 'football'? Why are you telling me that it's a football? I know that this sport isn't played with tennis balls!" So what do you think?

[zompist]

In English, or at least some dialects of English, that's apparently not always the case. Long ago, I was watching a game in one of the oval ball sports - I've forgotten which one - and at one point, one of the commentators said something like "That's good handling of the football". And I was like, "What do you mean, 'football'? Why are you telling me that it's a football? I know that this sport isn't played with tennis balls!" So what do you think?

I think normal usage would be "ball", but it's not incorrect to be more specific. But I'd also note that sports announcers are kind of known for colorful language. If you're basically saying the same thing for hours on end ("Henderson pitches the ball. Kulevitz hits the ball. The ball is heading for left field. Hernandez caught the ball!"), you try to switch things up.

[Ares Land]

There's Charlie Brown's football too!

[Travis B.]

I'm still confused by doll/dal/Dahl. I feel like "dal" should be homophonous with "Dahl" but not "doll", but I also can't imagine what "doll" would be if not homophonous - [dɔɫ] feels too New England. But I've spent a lot of time in the father-bother-unmerged parts of the US.

For me [d̥a(ː)ɤ̯], [d̥ɑ(ː)ɤ̯], and [d̥ɒ(ː)o̯] are valid pronunciations of doll now that I think of it, while only [d̥a(ː)ɤ̯] and and possibly [d̥ɑ(ː)ɤ̯] are valid pronunciations of Dahl. Interestingly, I have only [ˈdaɤ̯ˌhʌo̯s] or sometimes [ˈdaɤ̯ˌhɑɔ̯s] as valid pronunciations of dollhouse.

[Raphael]

In English, or at least some dialects of English, that's apparently not always the case. Long ago, I was watching a game in one of the oval ball sports - I've forgotten which one - and at one point, one of the commentators said something like "That's good handling of the football". And I was like, "What do you mean, 'football'? Why are you telling me that it's a football? I know that this sport isn't played with tennis balls!" So what do you think?

I think normal usage would be "ball", but it's not incorrect to be more specific.

Thank you!

[Travis B.]

In the song Tempted by Squeeze, I hear the word tempted in many places as tainted, i.e /ˈteɪntɪd/ realized as [ˈtʰẽtʰɪt], when it ought to be /ˈtɛmptɪd/ (which I do hear in a few places in the song). I only today learned that the word in the song was actually tempted. As Squeeze is an English band, this makes me wonder whether /ɛ/ is so closed in some English English varieties that I would hear it as /eɪ/, especially since I do not intuitively hear vowel length phonemically, and the apparent lack of centralization, as I am used to /ɛ/ being at least weakly centralized, does not help. As for confusing /nt/ with /mpt/, that is probably just a matter of pre-fortis stop elision of nasals combined with the lack of salience of the unreleased [p̚]. Any thoughts?

Edit: I should note that my native /eɪ/ is quite open too, and isn't very far from my native /æ/...

[Raphael]

"businesspeople" or "business people"?

[bradrn]

"businesspeople" or "business people"?

The former is a compound, the latter is an adjective modifying a noun (well, a noun modifying a noun). The standard example of this is ‘blackberry’ vs ‘black berry’. The stress is also different: /ˈbusinessˌpeople/ vs /ˌbusiness ˈpeople/. That being said, I’m not entirely sure what a ‘business person’ would be, as distinct from a ‘businessperson’; the compound is highly preferable here.

[Raphael]

the compound is highly preferable here.

Thank you!

[Imralu]

Are "doll" and "dal" (as in "dal makhani", etc.) homophones?

I actually don't know. If there's a pom-palm split, "doll" has the "palm" vowel and "dal" has the "pom" vowel, I think?

I seem to have that pom-palm split (plus even if I don't pronounce the /l/ in "palm", it still inverse-lateralizes (ok i made that term up but it should be clear enough) the /ɑ/), and for me, "doll" has PALM and "dal" has POM. Also, "Dahl" can have either.

That is exactly backwards to me. "Doll" has the LOT and CLOTH vowel [ɔ] and "dal" and "Dahl" have the "PALM" vowel [ɐː~äː].

I find I can never predict the distribution of o- and a-sounds in American English in the dialects that haven't just merged LOT, CLOTH and THOUGHT into PALM. The funniest thing is that I see spellings like "dawg", which suggest that it's using the THOUGHT vowel rather than the LOT/CLOTH vowel, but when I hear people from the US saying "dog" or "dawg", it nearly always sounds like the PALM vowel to me in either case (like "darg" ).

[Travis B.]

I find I can never predict the distribution of o- and a-sounds in American English in the dialects that haven't just merged LOT, CLOTH and THOUGHT into PALM. The funniest thing is that I see spellings like "dawg", which suggest that it's using the THOUGHT vowel rather than the LOT/CLOTH vowel, but when I hear people from the US saying "dog" or "dawg", it nearly always sounds like the PALM vowel to me in either case (like "darg" ).

Dog has CLOTH/THOUGHT in the NAE I am familiar with; I myself am used to [ɒ] for it. As mentioned, LOT/FATHER normally has [a] (but it has [ɑ] adjacent to /r w h kw gw/), PALM has [ɑ], and START has [ɑʁˤ].

[Raphael]

I found this on Mastodon:

https://universeodon.com/@LadyDragonfly ... 9255529296

Midwest Guide to Yes and No

Yeah = yes
No = no
Yeah, no = no
No yeah, yeah = yes
Yeah, no yeah! = very yes
No, yeah no = very no
Welp = yes

My question is, how accurate is that?