English questions

[Travis B.]

Who here has something resembling /ˈproʊəˌlɔːɡ/ for prologue? I personally usually pronounce the word as [ˈpʰʁ̥ˤo̞ːːˌʟ̞ɒːk] (yes, you're reading that correctly, that's an overlong vowel), even though when speaking carefully it may be [ˈpʰʁ̥ˤo̞ːə̯ˌʟ̞ɒːk], or when I am enunciating it especially carefully it may be [ˈpʰʁ̥ˤo̞ːəːˌʟ̞ɒːk]. Interestingly enough a [w] is never inserted for me in this word.

[vlad]

Some Australians and New Zealanders (but not me) pronounce "known" as two syllables. I don't know if this applies to other past participles.

Isn't that just a falling diphthong ending in a schwa that preceeds the "n"?


JAL

/oə̯/ is very much non-Australian. More a midlands sort of diphthong.

I've heard Australians with /oə/. Sometimes it sounds like it might even be /oː.ə/ (THOUGHT + schwa). That's not what's in "known", though.

Australian has two alternants for "known"; /ˈnɐy̯n/ (with GOAT) and /ˈnɐu̯ən/ (bisyllabic, with GOAL and syllabic /n/)

It's not GOAL, GOAL is different.

If I heard the known pronounced with two syllables in isolation I'd think you were saying the present participle instead.

There's a song by Flight of the Conchords which contains the line "Though they're unknown", with "unknown" pronounced as three syllables. But people on the internet have mistakenly transcribed it as "Though they are no one" or even "Don't think I know when".

[Darren]

I've heard Australians with /oə/. Sometimes it sounds like it might even be /oː.ə/ (THOUGHT + schwa). That's not what's in "known", though.

I've never heard anyone with that

Australian has two alternants for "known"; /ˈnɐy̯n/ (with GOAT) and /ˈnɐu̯ən/ (bisyllabic, with GOAL and syllabic /n/)

It's not GOAL, GOAL is different.

It's the same for me and people around me. GOAL is a (generally) pre-hiatus or pre-homomorphemic /l/ variant of GOAT. In this case there's hiatus with the -en so GOAL appears.

[Travis B.]

When people speak of GOAT versus GOAL, is this really a phonemic contrast, or is this like my [ɑɔ̯] versus [ʌ̆ŏ̯] for MOUTH, which are entirely predictable, in that GOAL is pre-lateral and pre-vocalic while GOAT is found elsewhere?

[Lērisama]

When people speak of GOAT versus GOAL, is this really a phonemic contrast, or is this like my [ɑɔ̯] versus [ʌ̆ŏ̯] for MOUTH, which are entirely predictable, in that GOAL is pre-lateral and pre-vocalic while GOAT is found elsewhere?

I have the minimal pair wholely vs. holy which are [hɔwlɪj] and [hɘʉ̯lɪj] respectively. You can make a pretty good argument that these are /həwllij/¹ and /həwlij/, but I prefer /hɔwlij/ and /həwlij/, as I think it's more consistent with the rest of the phonology, even if intuition of the one speaker who spontaneously remarked on it to me said /hɔllij/².

¹ Or even /hɔllij/, with LOT
² Transcribing what I think they were getting at

[Travis B.]

When people speak of GOAT versus GOAL, is this really a phonemic contrast, or is this like my [ɑɔ̯] versus [ʌ̆ŏ̯] for MOUTH, which are entirely predictable, in that GOAL is pre-lateral and pre-vocalic while GOAT is found elsewhere?

I have the minimal pair wholely vs. holy which are [hɔwlɪj] and [hɘʉ̯lɪj] respectively. You can make a pretty good argument that these are /həwllij/¹ and /həwlij/, but I prefer /hɔwlij/ and /həwlij/, as I think it's more consistent with the rest of the phonology, even if intuition of the one speaker who spontaneously remarked on it to me said /hɔllij/².

¹ Or even /hɔllij/, with LOT
² Transcribing what I think they were getting at

I have wholly versus holy and these for me are unambiguously synchronically /ˈholli/ [ˈho̞ːʟ̞ːi(ː)] versus /ˈholi/ [ˈho̞ːʊ̯i(ː)]. I would argue that wholly is an example of a morphological geminate in English.

[Darren]

When people speak of GOAT versus GOAL, is this really a phonemic contrast, or is this like my [ɑɔ̯] versus [ʌ̆ŏ̯] for MOUTH, which are entirely predictable, in that GOAL is pre-lateral and pre-vocalic while GOAT is found elsewhere?

There's a contrast with morpheme boundaries; "holy" [ˈhɐy̯ɫəj] vs. "holey" [ˈhɐu̯ɫəj]. You could analyse these as /həʊ̯.li/ vs /həʊ̯l.i/ though. I wouldn't call them significantly phonemic (likewise there's a contrast between [əy̯] and [əu̯] for GOOSE, but there's a GOOSE/THOUGHT merger before coda /l/ here anyway so that muddies the waters.

[Travis B.]

When people speak of GOAT versus GOAL, is this really a phonemic contrast, or is this like my [ɑɔ̯] versus [ʌ̆ŏ̯] for MOUTH, which are entirely predictable, in that GOAL is pre-lateral and pre-vocalic while GOAT is found elsewhere?

There's a contrast with morpheme boundaries; "holy" [ˈhɐy̯ɫəj] vs. "holey" [ˈhɐu̯ɫəj]. You could analyse these as /həʊ̯.li/ vs /həʊ̯l.i/ though. I wouldn't call them significantly phonemic (likewise there's a contrast between [əy̯] and [əu̯] for GOOSE, but there's a GOOSE/THOUGHT merger before coda /l/ here anyway so that muddies the waters.

To me it's better to consider morpheme boundaries to be phonemic than to come up with distinctions in phonemes to avoid having phonemic morpheme boundaries.

[vlad]

I didn't realize that "GOAL" varied so much. I'm not even sure we're talking about the same thing.

"Holy" and "holey" are homophones for me, and "wholely" is probably a homophone most of the time, though it could have a geminate in careful speech. All of these have GOAL; GOAT is found in words like "lowly", where the /l/ is separated from the vowel by a morpheme boundary.

What Darren describes as [ɐu̯] I have only before vowels, and I perceive it as an allophone of GOAT. (I didn't even notice there was a difference between [ɐy̯] and [ɐu̯] until it was pointed out to me.) GOAL is [ɒX], where [X] is some weird rounded glide that's different from [u̯] in a way that I don't know how to describe. ([X] also occurs in MOUTH [æX].)

I intuitively perceive [ɒX] as a different vowel from [ɐy̯] ~ [ɐu̯]. There's only one minimal pair not involving morpheme boundaries: [ɐy̯] "oh" vs. [ɒX] (interjection expressing disappointment with no standard spelling; I've seen people spell it "oh" and "aw", but both of those usually represent other pronunciations). But I consider the lack of a minimal pair like [sɐy̯lɐy̯] vs. [sɒXlɐy̯] to be an accidental gap.

[Darren]

What Darren describes as [ɐu̯] I have only before vowels, and I perceive it as an allophone of GOAT. (I didn't even notice there was a difference between [ɐy̯] and [ɐu̯] until it was pointed out to me.) GOAL is [ɒX], where [X] is some weird rounded glide that's different from [u̯] in a way that I don't know how to describe. ([X] also occurs in MOUTH [æX].)

Traditional Aussie MOUTH is /æo̯/; for me it borders on even [ɛo̞̯] in casual speech with a negligible difference in height between nucleus and glide. But as with the majority of "rounded" vowels in my dialect, the rounding is sulcalation (mouth-internal) without visible lip rounding.

I intuitively perceive [ɒX] as a different vowel from [ɐy̯] ~ [ɐu̯]. There's only one minimal pair not involving morpheme boundaries: [ɐy̯] "oh" vs. [ɒX] (interjection expressing disappointment with no standard spelling; I've seen people spell it "oh" and "aw", but both of those usually represent other pronunciations).

That tallies for me. For [ɒX] I'd call it [ɑʊ̯] or something; it's higher for me than o̯ in MOUTH.

[Travis B.]

It seems one thing that AusE has in common with the English I'm familiar with is significant l-coloring of vowels. E.g. /ɛ ɪ oʊ ʊ u/ (I'd synchronically consider them /ɜ ɨ o ʊ u/) all undergo l-coloring, in that /ɛ ɪ/ are retracted and fronting of /oʊ ʊ u/ is blocked before /l/ even when following coronals or palatals. As /l/ is simultaneously vocalized postvocalically when non-geminate, this results in [ɜ(ː)ɤ̯ ɨ(ː)ɯ̯ o̞(ː)ʊ̯ ʊː(ː) u(ː)ʊ̯], with [ɜ(ː)ɤ̯] in particular being only weakly diphthongal due to the short distance of the glide.

[Travis B.]

One conclusion I have come to from discussions of AusE on this forum is that your guys' AusE and the local NAE dialect may not be fully cross-intelligible... for instance, if I heard [ˈhɐy̯ɫəj] I'd naturally parse it as /ˈhaʊləɪ/, which is a non-word in the English I am familiar with.

[Travis B.]

Has anyone else observed the following in English ─ my daughter regularly pronounces the 3rd singular indicative present of taste as /ˈteɪsəz/, as if she has underlyingly lost the /t/ in the word taste and has reformed its conjugation accordingly?

[Darren]

It seems one thing that AusE has in common with the English I'm familiar with is significant l-coloring of vowels. E.g. /ɛ ɪ oʊ ʊ u/ (I'd synchronically consider them /ɜ ɨ o ʊ u/) all undergo l-coloring, in that /ɛ ɪ/ are retracted and fronting of /oʊ ʊ u/ is blocked before /l/ even when following coronals or palatals. As /l/ is simultaneously vocalized postvocalically when non-geminate, this results in [ɜ(ː)ɤ̯ ɨ(ː)ɯ̯ o̞(ː)ʊ̯ ʊː(ː) u(ː)ʊ̯], with [ɜ(ː)ɤ̯] in particular being only weakly diphthongal due to the short distance of the glide.

The situation for my dialect is

Lexical set	Normal	l-coloured
FLEECE	[ɘi̯]	[ɪːɫʷ], unless for no particular reason it becomes bisyllabic [ɘˑjᵊɫʷ] instead
GOOSE, THOUGHT	[ɘy̯], [öː]	both [ʊu̯ɫʷ]
MOUTH, TRAP	[æo̯], [æ]	[æː(ʊ̯)ɫʷ], [æ(ʊ̯)ɫʷ] (turn into a length pair)
FOOT	[ö]	[ʊɫʷ], very similar to GOOSE/THOUGHT
LOT, STRUT, GOAT	[ɒ], [a], [ɐy̯]	all [ɐʊ̯ɫʷ] in most cases; LOT [ɒɫʷ] in a very very few words, STRUT [aɫʷ] in word-final position
PRICE	[ɒe̯]	usually [ɒĕ̯jᵊɫʷ], casually and in "I'll" [ɒːɫʷ]
CHOICE, FACE	[ʊi̯], [ɐi̯]	bisyllabic [ʊˑjᵊɫʷ], [ɐˑjᵊɫʷ] always

The remaining vowels, i.e. [ɵː] NURSE, [aː] START, [i] KIT, [e] DRESS, don't do anything interesting.

[Lērisama]

Traditional Aussie MOUTH is /æo̯/; for me it borders on even [ɛo̞̯] in casual speech with a negligible difference in height between nucleus and glide. But as with the majority of "rounded" vowels in my dialect, the rounding is sulcalation (mouth-internal) without visible lip rounding.

I have the same with sulcalation – only FOOT and GOOSE have true rounding

[Travis B.]

It seems one thing that AusE has in common with the English I'm familiar with is significant l-coloring of vowels. E.g. /ɛ ɪ oʊ ʊ u/ (I'd synchronically consider them /ɜ ɨ o ʊ u/) all undergo l-coloring, in that /ɛ ɪ/ are retracted and fronting of /oʊ ʊ u/ is blocked before /l/ even when following coronals or palatals. As /l/ is simultaneously vocalized postvocalically when non-geminate, this results in [ɜ(ː)ɤ̯ ɨ(ː)ɯ̯ o̞(ː)ʊ̯ ʊː(ː) u(ː)ʊ̯], with [ɜ(ː)ɤ̯] in particular being only weakly diphthongal due to the short distance of the glide.

The situation for my dialect is

Lexical set	Normal	l-coloured
FLEECE	[ɘi̯]	[ɪːɫʷ], unless for no particular reason it becomes bisyllabic [ɘˑjᵊɫʷ] instead
GOOSE, THOUGHT	[ɘy̯], [öː]	both [ʊu̯ɫʷ]
MOUTH, TRAP	[æo̯], [æ]	[æː(ʊ̯)ɫʷ], [æ(ʊ̯)ɫʷ] (turn into a length pair)
FOOT	[ö]	[ʊɫʷ], very similar to GOOSE/THOUGHT
LOT, STRUT, GOAT	[ɒ], [a], [ɐy̯]	all [ɐʊ̯ɫʷ] in most cases; LOT [ɒɫʷ] in a very very few words, STRUT [aɫʷ] in word-final position
PRICE	[ɒe̯]	usually [ɒĕ̯jᵊɫʷ], casually and in "I'll" [ɒːɫʷ]
CHOICE, FACE	[ʊi̯], [ɐi̯]	bisyllabic [ʊˑjᵊɫʷ], [ɐˑjᵊɫʷ] always

The remaining vowels, i.e. [ɵː] NURSE, [aː] START, [i] KIT, [e] DRESS, don't do anything interesting.

I forgot to mention that while in careful speech /l/ after PRICE, MOUTH, and CHOICE and not before another vowel becomes [ɯ(ː)] or, after MOUTH, [ʊ(ː)], in everyday speech PRICE before /l/, /w/, or GOAT very commonly becomes [a(ː)] (with /l/ in turn becoming [ɯ̯]).

[kosen444]

Has anyone else observed the following in English ─ my daughter regularly pronounces the 3rd singular indicative present of taste as /ˈteɪsəz/, as if she has underlyingly lost the /t/ in the word taste and has reformed its conjugation accordingly?

The /sts/ cluster in tastes is pretty tricky to articulate, especially for younger speakers, so simplifying it to something easier to say is a common workaround. Over time, most kids adjust as they get more input and practice, but this kind of “regularization” based on surface forms happens a lot in language learning

[Travis B.]

Has anyone else observed the following in English ─ my daughter regularly pronounces the 3rd singular indicative present of taste as /ˈteɪsəz/, as if she has underlyingly lost the /t/ in the word taste and has reformed its conjugation accordingly?

The /sts/ cluster in tastes is pretty tricky to articulate, especially for younger speakers, so simplifying it to something easier to say is a common workaround. Over time, most kids adjust as they get more input and practice, but this kind of “regularization” based on surface forms happens a lot in language learning

Thing is, my daughter is not that young (she's in high school). She also has the same change with nouns ending in /st/ when in the plural -- e.g. she has /ˈtɛsəz/ for tests. I should note that in the English here final /st/ regularly becomes [s] outside careful speech unless it follows certain consonants such as /r/ where then it becomes [sʲ]. For me at least, though, final /sts/ becomes [sʲː].

[Man in Space]

Reading the SCK again, I note that zompist marks “I saw two men behind myself” with an asterisk. For me that’s valid—though admittedly I’d expect it to be said in a marked context, like someone reviewing CCTV footage of themselves during a period of amnesia.

[Travis B.]

Reading the SCK again, I note that zompist marks “I saw two men behind myself” with an asterisk. For me that’s valid—though admittedly I’d expect it to be said in a marked context, like someone reviewing CCTV footage of themselves during a period of amnesia.

It feels rather odd to me -- I'd normally say "I saw two men behind me" myself.