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From: rdd@usa1.com (Aaron J. Dinkin)
Subject: Re: Chain Shift (was Tendency of Inflections to Disappear)
Message-ID: <rdd-0608962218470001@dmn1-67.usa1.com>
Date: Tue, 06 Aug 1996 22:18:47 -0500
References: <4suk93$pob@carrera.intergate.bc.ca> <rdd-2607961343260001@dmn1-39.usa1.com> <31FE66AD.7824@qualcomm.com> <rte-3107961047100001@135.25.40.118> <4u4p0j$mef@shellx.best.com> <rte-0508961326490001@135.25.40.118> <rdd-0608960947340001@dmn1-67.usa1.com> <rte-0608961829420001@135.25.40.118>
Lines: 90

In article <rte-0608961829420001@135.25.40.118>, rte@elmo.lz.att.com
(Ralph T. Edwards) wrote:

> In article <rdd-0608960947340001@dmn1-67.usa1.com>, rdd@usa1.com (Aaron J.
> Dinkin) wrote:
> 
> > In article <rte-0508961326490001@135.25.40.118>, rte@elmo.lz.att.com
> > (Ralph T. Edwards) wrote:
> > 
> > > In article <4u4p0j$mef@shellx.best.com>, Joe Keane <jgk@jgk.org> wrote:
> > > 
> > > 
> > > > In article <rte-3107961047100001@135.25.40.118>
> > > > Ralph T. Edwards <rte@elmo.lz.att.com> writes:
> > > > >So Aaron, where are your parents and neighbors from?  How many are
> > > > >transplants from the NYC area?
> > 
> > It's possible to trace my lineage back five generations without leaving
> > suburban Boston. Before that (or later, with different sets of ancestors)
> > you have to go to Lithuania or Russia or somewhere.
> 
> Aha! Boston!  Well of course you distinguish furry and hurry.

You may well say "Aha! Boston! Well of course...", but I don't think I
bear any (other) characteristics of the stereotypical Boston accent. I'm
firmly rhotic, and I use /&/, not /a/, in "can't", "dance", and "ask" -
although my mother, four generations Boston, has /a/ in "can't", and my
grandmother, three generations Boston, uses /a/ in all three of those, and
even I use /a/ in "aunt", to distinguish it from "ant".

> > > > Some similar vowel+`r' test words are `carry', `ferry', and `horrid'.
> > > > New Englanders will of course pronounce the vowels correctly, while
> > > > others tend to smash up vowels before `r', pronouncing these words,
> > > > amusingly enough, `care-ree', `fair-ree', and `whore-rid'.
> > > > 
> > > > --
> > > > Joe Keane, amateur linguist
> > > 
> > > Minus ten points for using "correctly" in sci.lang without a smiley.
> > 
> > Hey, he did say "amateur". Go easy on him. (And I'm in alt.usage.english,
> > where some of the denizens consider smileys indicative of hopeless
> > inarticulateness and at least one mysteriously never even sees them.)
> 
> I thought I'd implied a smiley by saying "minus ten points."  Consider it
> implied now.  One of the problems with email and netnews is that everyone
> comes across meaner than they intend to be.

Sorry; I understood you were being facetious; I debated saying "only take
away seven" or the like but decided against it. (And that's too many
semicolons for one sentence.)

<snip>

> > > You'll be hArrified to know that /hO-/ comes first in my AE dict. and is
> > > the only pronunciation in a BE dict.
> > 
> > Well, I'm horrified, but then I'm also horrified when a dictionary says
> > that "paw" and "lore" have the same vowel.
> > 
> > -Aaron J. Dinkin
> > Dr. Whom
> 
> I agree; my vowel for lore is a compromise between law and low and lies
> close to French or German /O/.  It also occurs in gonna and boy.  Yes, my
> g_o_nna is rounded, definitely not gunna and not gawnna  Am I alone?

I say /'gOn@/ also, and I say /Ov/ for "of", and (quite perversely, when
you think about it) /bi'kOz/ for "because". (That, incidentally, is why I
spell the clipped for of "because" as <'coz>, rather than <'cause>;
spelling it <'cause> would imply that I pronounced it like "cause", which
I don't.)

> It is (in general) not a separate phoneme,

Is for me. Distinguishes such minimal pairs as "aural"/"oral" or
"laurel-eyed Lorelei". (I know I omitted the subjects in those sentences,
in what Anthony Burgess calls the "characteristic dialect of retired
major-generals": "Met the fellow in Bombay. Never cared for the cut of his
jib." &c.)

> but is different enough that I easily hear the difference, and I think it was
> useful in learning French and German.  A friend from the plains with no
> distinction between /O/ and /A/ had a devil of a time figuring out German
> /a:/,/a/, and /O/.

Was there a distinction between /a/ and /A/?

-Aaron J. Dinkin
Dr. Whom

