Zompist Bboard Again

Linguoboy wrote: ↑Tue Jul 17, 2018 3:16 pmToday a friend said "Bahai" and he had to repeat it twice before I could parse it. The /ə/ in the initial syllable was so fleeting it just sounded like "pie" to me.

cedh wrote: ↑Wed Jul 18, 2018 4:29 amThe merger is most common in the north, but I've recently come across a study that reports striking variation in the southwest too

cedh wrote: ↑Wed Jul 18, 2018 4:29 amAs for myself, I seem to consistently distinguish these sounds everywhere except before /ʁ/, where they both come out as something like [eː͡ɐ̯].

Linguoboy wrote: ↑Wed Jul 18, 2018 11:05 am

cedh wrote: ↑Wed Jul 18, 2018 4:29 amThe merger is most common in the north, but I've recently come across a study that reports striking variation in the southwest too

Link?

Travis B. wrote:

linguoboy wrote:

Vijay wrote:Indians definitely learn very formal English in school and tend towards British English usage. Of course this is changing due to American media becoming more and more pervasive, but I doubt the school curriculum has kept pace with this trend. Some Indians try to sound more American after moving here, but they're the exception rather than the norm, and it's probably near impossible for them to shake off everything they learned in school.

This is interesting to me since I recently spent the weekend with a Gujarati friend and if not for his /v/ you might think he'd been born here. I don't recall a single Britishism in his speech.

To me at least, the longer an Indian has been in the US the more likely they are to sound like a native English-speaker and the more likely they are to sound American rather than British. I have encountered Indians who sounded like Americans aside from occasional phonological details (like their pronunciation of /v/ and /w/), and I have encountered Indians that were utterly unintelligible before I learned to understand the phonology of Indian English (e.g. learning to understand [p t k b d g ɾ] as /p t k b d g r/).

Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed Jul 18, 2018 8:43 pm As I have mentioned previously, my idiolect has marked palatalization of /t/ in quite a few words where GA lacks it, and I notice that at least my mother has this as well. (I can confirm she pronounces sister as [ˈsɘɕtɕʁ̩(ː)].) But one word in particular that sticks out which I notice myself having palatalization is tarantula, which has not only the usual palatalization of historical /t/ before /j/ but also palatalization of the initial /t/, as [tɕʰʁ̩ːˈʁɛ̃tʃɯːɰə(ː)].

Acid Badger wrote: ↑Wed Jul 18, 2018 3:48 pm

Linguoboy wrote: ↑Wed Jul 18, 2018 11:05 am

cedh wrote: ↑Wed Jul 18, 2018 4:29 amThe merger is most common in the north, but I've recently come across a study that reports striking variation in the southwest too

Link?

Seconding!

cedh wrote: ↑Thu Jul 19, 2018 2:21 amhttps://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/ful ... stul.12062

Linguoboy wrote: ↑Thu Jul 19, 2018 11:35 amI found this an odd sentence: "Some government officials wonder whether anyone organised the protests—possibly fuel smugglers, political rivals or powerful families that benefit from the subsidies."

Using "anyone" in that first clause implies to me that the default assumption is that someone did and that the dissenting view is that the protests were unorganised. But the conclusion of the sentence implies the opposite, that the prevailing few is that they were spontaneous. IMD that first clause should be "Some government officials wonder whether someone may have organised the protests..."

Aftovota wrote: ↑Thu Jul 19, 2018 2:08 am

Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed Jul 18, 2018 8:43 pm As I have mentioned previously, my idiolect has marked palatalization of /t/ in quite a few words where GA lacks it, and I notice that at least my mother has this as well. (I can confirm she pronounces sister as [ˈsɘɕtɕʁ̩(ː)].) But one word in particular that sticks out which I notice myself having palatalization is tarantula, which has not only the usual palatalization of historical /t/ before /j/ but also palatalization of the initial /t/, as [tɕʰʁ̩ːˈʁɛ̃tʃɯːɰə(ː)].

That's not unexpected palatalization so much as syncope then retraction before /r/, like in <tree> [tʃʰɹiː], <straight> [stʃɹeɪ̯ʔ]~[ʃtʃɹeɪ̯ʔ], or <dry> [dʒɹɑɪ̯]. If I dropped the first schwa in <tarantula> I'd produce something like [ˈtʃʰɹæ̃ʔtʃɫ̩ə].

EDIT: That pronunciation of <sister> is unusual, though, I agree. Also, I forgot about a source of historical /j/.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Thu Jul 19, 2018 6:56 pmThe difference is that the /r/ in my tarantula is syllabic, and normally syllabic /r/ does not trigger retraction and affrication of /t/ in NAE. Similar examples for me include fac[tʃ]ory, re[ɕtɕ]aurant, and refrac[tʃ]ory.

statelessnation wrote: ↑Thu Jul 19, 2018 11:36 am In languages with case which are both Ergative-Absolutive and Secundative, does the role of a 'Donor' typically get marked in the Ergative case or do they typically show it some other way?

Uuma     Niisi aningaasa-nik  tuni-vaa.
that.erg Nisi  money-instr.pl give-ind.3s/3s
'He gave Nisi money.'

Linguoboy wrote: ↑Thu Jul 26, 2018 4:21 pm Interesting to see that English "the world over" has an exact parallel in Swedish världen över.

 [i]

[i] -> [iç]

[i] -> [eɪ] 

Ars Lande wrote: ↑Wed Aug 01, 2018 3:20 pm Lots of people, of all ages, have

Code: Select all

[i] -> [iç]

word finally. I caught myself doing too, to my consternation (it is a little annoying).

Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed Aug 01, 2018 7:11 pm Pronouncing final /i/ as [e] is primarily a singing thing in NAE, not something in normal everyday speech.