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From: rdd@usa1.com (Aaron J. Dinkin)
Subject: Re: PIN =/= PINK !
Message-ID: <rdd-0708960908580001@dmn1-53.usa1.com>
Date: Wed, 07 Aug 1996 09:08:58 -0500
References: <4u996o$bfq@cantuc.canterbury.ac.nz>
Lines: 48

In article <4u996o$bfq@cantuc.canterbury.ac.nz>,
mathwft@math.canterbury.ac.nz (Bill Taylor) wrote:

> Even the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language seems to have got this one wrong!
> Never seen it mentioned elsewhere either.
> 
> The fact is, the short "i" phoneme has two *very* different phones in it, to
> my ear at least.
> 
> "pin" and "pink" (or "ping") are pronounced quite differently.
> 
> It's easy to hear this if you set out to say "pin" but add on a "k" at the
> last microsecond; then you get an almost comical or foreign-sounding word
> (though still quite recognizable as "pink").
> 
> Much harder to do it the other way, (say "pin" pronounced as in "pink"), but
> that too can be achieved with a bit of practice.
> 
> 
> Sure, of course it's just another example of phoneme-coloration induced by 
> following-phoneme preparation, but it strikes me as a massive one.
> 
> Anyone got any others?

I've never noticed and large, overt difference between the allophones of
/I/ in "pin" /pIn/ and "pink" /pINk/. Perhaps it's your dialect. However,
I do have a quite massive example of phoneme coloration: /&/ before a
nasal is quite regularly raised to [e], and if the nasal is /m/ or /n/, it
is diphthongized to [e@]. Thus "can" /k&n/ is [ke@n], and "bang" /b&N/ is
[beN], all this to the extent that when I was in kindergarten learning
about the "short a" (/&/) and the "long a" (/e/), I kept wondering, "When
are we going to learn about the "a before n"?

> Here is a story about Lara, Laura and Lora, three identical triplets
>                                                 with *very* silly parents...

You got this from me, right? I posted recently that someday I'll write a
logic puzzle about three women named Lara, Laura, and Lora, each with a
different dialect, and the solver must figure out whoch is which based on
their conversation. (The trick is that since their dialects are different,
when (for example) Lora addresses Laura, Laura will think she's addressing
Lara because of the pronunciation difference.)

Incidentally, I pronounce "Lara", "Laura", and "Lora" all differently;
anyone else do this?

-Aaron J. Dinkin
Dr. Whom

