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From: pardoej@lonnds.ml.com (Julian Pardoe LADS LDN X1428)
Subject: Re: Chain Shift (was Tendency of Inflections to Disappear)
Message-ID: <Dw4ypC.88y@tigadmin.ml.com>
Sender: usenet@tigadmin.ml.com (News Account)
Reply-To: pardoej@lonnds.ml.com
Organization: Merrill Lynch Europe
References: <rdd-0908960913490001@dmn1-21.usa1.com>
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 16:19:59 GMT
Lines: 18

In article <rdd-0908960913490001@dmn1-21.usa1.com>, rdd@usa1.com (Aaron J. Dinkin) writes:
-->My own dialect prohibits three unstressed syllables in a row. "Ordinarily"
-->in RP is probably something like ['O~dn-r@,li], but the secondary stress
-->on "-ly" is overlooked. I'm happy to be corrected by someone who knows
-->more.

Is it three unstressed syllable in a row or is that the stress unit is
at most <u - u u> (duh-dum-duh-duh) with the three unstressed syllables
being optional?  Most British people find words like "literature",
"temporary" and "ordinary" difficult to pronounce, saying "litrature",
"temp(r)ary" and "ordinry" (['lItr@tS@], ['tEmp(r)@ri], ['O:dinri]), thus
eliminating the third syllable.  As for the adverbial forms of these last
two, well they are almost impossible and most people give up and introduce
a secondary stress giving ",ordi'nerily" and ",tempo'rerily".

-- jP --


