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From: rte@elmo.lz.att.com (Ralph T. Edwards)
Subject: Accents - was Re: Neantherthal Vowels
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References: <45bh27$kjf$1@mhafm.production.compuserve.com> <45c5c6$3lg@netsrv2.spss.com> <hubey.813300898@pegasus.montclair.edu> <45ffiv$3e3@medici.trl.OZ.AU> <45tssd$7qp@rzsun02.rrz.uni-hamburg.de> <ZpEHosf.ben1910@delphi.com> <rte-1710951018300001@mac-118.lz.att.com> <813970302snz@galdr.demon.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 1995 18:19:41 GMT
Lines: 32

In article <813970302snz@galdr.demon.co.uk>, Alex@galdr.demon.co.uk wrote:

> > Actually native speakers of English have no trouble pronouncing words like
> > knecht without vowels.  Words like connect are pronounced that way in
> > rapid speech all the time.  The problem is more basic.  Because [knEkt]
> > and [k@nEkt] are considered equivalent, sometimes a vowel gets inserted
> > where it doesn't belong.  It's a form of hypercorrection, since the form
> > with the vowel is the more formal version (in English).  All of this
> > proceeds on an unconscious level.
> > English w and v get confused in many foreign accents for the same reason,
> > they are heard as just two ways of pronouncing the same phoneme (in the 
> > foreigner's mind).  Differing phoneme boundaries (and in this case 
> > differing rules for elision) are the source of accents.
> > 
>         I thought the reason was that the "foreign" speakers language made no
> disstinction between say w and v so there are no minimal pairs for these
sounds.
> Not hypercorrection, simply being unable to hear the difference.

Well that's what I thought I wrote.
Hypercorrection referred to undoing an imagined elision.  By "same", I meant in
both cases the pronunciations are equivalent in the speaker's
native language, but not in the language being spoken.  But in another sense, 
hypercorrection does make sense even for w/v case, because the speaker is using 
what s/he deems to be the "right" sound for the context.  The "center" of the 
perceived phoneme (or the appropriate allophone) in the speakers mind,
instead of 
the "outlier".  The quoted words mean "as perceived by the person with the 
foreign accent."

-- 
R.T.Edwards rte@elmo.att.com 908 576-3031
