Zompist Bboard Again

Xwtek wrote: ↑Fri Dec 13, 2019 11:47 pmHow do you pronounce you in "I love you", "He gives you a present", etc? Is it informal to reduce it? Also, Is pronoun reduced after a preposition in "I'm doing this for you" or "I'm sleeping with her"?

Reducing "you" from [ju] to [jə] is pretty marked as very colloquial, too colloquial a lot of the time. Something you might hear a show host say when faking enthusiasm, or a co-worker say when they're about to say something folksy ("an' I tell ya, those guys..."). Reducing "I" from [aɪ] to [ə] is a more normal thing to do, but it seems to me that it's mostly associated with speaking fast. So "I love you" would mostly just be [aɪˈlɐvju], and "he gives you a present" [hiˈgɪvzju əˈpɹ̥ɛzənt].

Reducing "him/her/them" to [ɪm ɚ əm] happens, especially in fast speech, but probably less often with "her" which I *think* usually retains the [h]. Maybe something to do with the agent suffix -er. There's nothing to remark about "me" [mi] and "us" [əs], as they can't be reduced any further. The possessive determiner "our" is almost always [ɑ˞], and the adjective (or whatever) "ours" is similarly [ɑ˞z] more often than not.

Well, in the North American Englishes I'm used to, anyway. Surely there's some dialect or other in Britain where "you" [jə] or who knows what else is normal...

When it comes to stress and prepositional phrases as in "I'm doing this for you", you asked a similar question in this thread back in July, when you received some discussion on this topic by Salmoneus and me (see Sal's post, my post and Sal's reply below, and some further discussion that ensued). Is there something about that discussion you'd like to concentrate on?

Ser wrote: ↑Sat Dec 14, 2019 12:27 am Is there something about that discussion you'd like to concentrate on?

Yes. It's said that the preposition gets reduced at that position. However, is the pronoun reduced too? Or is the pronoun treated as noun and gets stressed? Because if both are unstressed it results in a weird (to me) stress pattern: I'm looking for you. Is that the correct one or is it I'm look[/b]ing for you

Ser wrote: ↑Sat Dec 14, 2019 12:27 am

Xwtek wrote: ↑Fri Dec 13, 2019 11:47 pmHow do you pronounce you in "I love you", "He gives you a present", etc? Is it informal to reduce it? Also, Is pronoun reduced after a preposition in "I'm doing this for you" or "I'm sleeping with her"?

Reducing "you" from [ju] to [jə] is pretty marked as very colloquial, too colloquial a lot of the time.

I was going to say maybe it's less marked when "you" is the subject. But I'm starting to think all you need (to make it less marked) is something else following it. Like, "I saw [jə]" might seem fairly colloquial, but "I saw [jə] yesterday" maybe less so.

Xwtek wrote: ↑Sat Dec 14, 2019 1:07 am

Ser wrote: ↑Sat Dec 14, 2019 12:27 amIs there something about that discussion you'd like to concentrate on?

Yes. It's said that the preposition gets reduced at that position. However, is the pronoun reduced too? Or is the pronoun treated as noun and gets stressed? Because if both are unstressed it results in a weird (to me) stress pattern: I'm looking for you. Is that the correct one or is it I'm look[/b]ing for you

Reduction and stress are different things, although they're related. The pronoun "you" generally doesn't reduce, even when it's unstressed as in "I'm looking for you".

It's alright if the stress pattern seems weird to you. It certainly does to Spanish speakers, who have a tendency to stress the pronoun "you" a lot ("I'm looking for you", cf. the Spanish pattern te buscaba a ti). But yeah, the regular, unmarked stress pattern is actually "I'm looking for you" [aɪmˈlʊkɪŋfɚju].

For preposition + pronoun, the preposition is always stressed and the pronoun is always unstressed, even when this creates a weird stress pattern - so it'd be [am ˈɫʊkɨn ˌfoɹ jɨ], not *[am ɫʊkɨn fəɹ ˌjʉw]. Unless the pronoun is emphatic, of course - "I'm looking for you".

(I'm not sure if the unstressed form of you should be written with [ɨ] or [ə]. It's also possible for [ʉw] to appear here, because there's a following schwa, but further reduction is also permissible.)

Another complicating factor is that the stress pattern depends on the register.

For nominative and oblique 3SG pronoun forms beginning with h, the /h/ is typically not realized unless the pronoun is emphatic.

I doesn't really reduce. So you'd have, like, "I gave you a present" [a ˈgejv jɨ ə ˈpɹɛzn̩t]. Unless it's emphatic, in which case it typically won't be monophthongized: [ˈˈaj ˈgejv jɨ ə ˈpɹɛzn̩t].

I at least sometimes reduce I to almost nothing, ... it depends on context. "I dunno" is a good example of where the pronoun reduces enough to make "dunno" an acceptable transcription. But I can see myself using a short, maybe only half-voiced I even in a transitive sentence like "I gave you a present".

Xwtek wrote: ↑Fri Dec 13, 2019 11:47 pm How do you pronounce you in "I love you", "He gives you a present", etc? Is it informal to reduce it? Also, Is pronoun reduced after a preposition in "I'm doing this for you" or "I'm sleeping with her"?

I reduce her but not you in any of these cases.

Pabappa wrote: ↑Sat Dec 14, 2019 1:45 pm I at least sometimes reduce I to almost nothing, ... it depends on context. "I dunno" is a good example of where the pronoun reduces enough to make "dunno" an acceptable transcription. But I can see myself using a short, maybe only half-voiced I even in a transitive sentence like "I gave you a present".

It's pretty easy to drop "I" in colloquial English. (or at least I do it all the time! e.g. things like "Going to the store, wanna come with?" or in response to a question: "Did you see the Mandalorian yet?" "Didn't see it yet, just keep seeing pictures of Baby Yoda on Twitter") But I'm not sure if that's a reduction or just pro-dropping.

alynnidalar wrote: ↑Mon Dec 16, 2019 1:35 pm

Pabappa wrote: ↑Sat Dec 14, 2019 1:45 pm I at least sometimes reduce I to almost nothing, ... it depends on context. "I dunno" is a good example of where the pronoun reduces enough to make "dunno" an acceptable transcription. But I can see myself using a short, maybe only half-voiced I even in a transitive sentence like "I gave you a present".

It's pretty easy to drop "I" in colloquial English. (or at least I do it all the time! e.g. things like "Going to the store, wanna come with?" or in response to a question: "Did you see the Mandalorian yet?" "Didn't see it yet, just keep seeing pictures of Baby Yoda on Twitter") But I'm not sure if that's a reduction or just pro-dropping.

That first construction is a Mid-Atlantic / Inland North thing, probably calqued from German. The second one I'd consider valid in writing, but probably not in speech.

Ser wrote: ↑Sat Dec 14, 2019 12:27 amReducing "him/her/them" to [ɪm ɚ əm] happens, especially in fast speech, but probably less often with "her" which I *think* usually retains the [h].

I'd say "give 'er" without [h] is pretty common? Thoug perhaps "saw 'er" is less common than "saw 'im"?


JAL

Ser wrote: ↑Thu Dec 12, 2019 5:54 pm
I guess I now feel what my classmates in a linguistics class once felt when we were asked about where the primary stress was in "conversation", and about 60% or 70% of the class chose the "con-" option. The professor stared back at us seriously, and said, "no, it's on -ation". (I have no idea how many non-native speakers there might have been in the class. Possibly very many, but I imagine some of those who voted wrong might have been native speakers...)

I know this is old, but .... i wonder if the professor used that example because they knew the students would get it wrong? e.g. if they had taught the same class many times over, they might have learned something .... i think i might have a very weak stress on -ation, especially in short words (spallation, plantation, etc) and maybe even stress the initial syllable if the rhythm of the sentence makes it smoother that way.

And yes Im a native speaker of English and know no other languages to fluency.

Does "nightingale" phonemically have /n/ or /N/ before the /g/ for you? For me it is phonemically /n/ because I have a glottal stop in the word. If it was /N/ I would have a flap.

A syllabic /n/, even in careful enunciation like when giving a speech.

I likewise have [ʔn̩] in nightingale.

[n] sounds wrong - I'd expect [nʌjɾɪŋgejəɫ]

Space60 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 10, 2020 1:45 pm Does "nightingale" phonemically have /n/ or /N/ before the /g/ for you? For me it is phonemically /n/ because I have a glottal stop in the word. If it was /N/ I would have a flap.

Asked already here: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=73&p=4471&hilit=nightingale#p4458

Nortaneous wrote: ↑Fri Jan 10, 2020 4:18 pm [n] sounds wrong - I'd expect [nʌjɾɪŋgejəɫ]

Apparently, your expectations don't match reality (but then again, we've al been there :lol:).


JAL

crimson

For people with the LOT / CLOTH split: God

crimson: [ˈkʰʁɘ̃m(p)sɘ̃(ː)(n)]
god: [kaːt], [kaːɾ] before a vowel

Ryusenshi wrote: ↑Mon Jan 13, 2020 5:46 pm crimson

For people with the LOT / CLOTH split: God

/krimzən/
/gɑd/