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From: mcv@inter.NL.net (Miguel Carrasquer)
Subject: Re: Syllable dropping in English
Message-ID: <CxKoKr.B9t@inter.NL.net>
Organization: /etc/organization
References: <MMBCORLE.94Sep28120323@scraps.exeter.ac.uk> <36sr8g$l98@cville-srv.wam.umd.edu> <1994Oct11.151640.8702@vitro.com> <CxJBEu.t6H@austin.ibm.com>
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 1994 18:26:51 GMT
Lines: 28

In article <CxJBEu.t6H@austin.ibm.com>,
Olivier Cremel <olivier@glasnost.austin.ibm.com> wrote:
>
>In article <1994Oct11.151640.8702@vitro.com>, jkelly@ms_unix1.vitro.com (Charles J. Kelly) writes:
>> 
>> You're right about vegetable for native US speakers, but my
>> mother-in-law who was from a small town near Manchester, England always
>> said ve-ge-ta-ble.  I wonder if this was peculiar to that section of
>> England or do most English pronounce it that way?
>
>It is my opinion that what you all are talking about is not syllabe
>dropping but simply a different realization of the schwa sound, that
>realization being no sound at all. It's quite common in French, too.
>However, since nobody came forward with that seemingly simple
>explanation, I would appreciate any correction if I'm wrong.
>

I can see your point for French, where schwas can be realized or not,
depending on position in the sentence and/or style of speech (not to
mention metric considerations in poetry).  I don't think "veg'table"
is comparable, though.  If you take it to be /vE dZ@ t@ bl/, with the
first /@/ realized as zero, then you might as well transcribe
"constable" as /kAn s@ t@ bl/ or even "possible" as /pA s@ s@ bl/.

-- 
Miguel Carrasquer         ____________________  ~~~
Amsterdam                [                  ||]~  
mcv@inter.NL.net         ce .sig n'est pas une .cig 
