I Scream for Ice Cream

[Victoria Neufeldt]

Never thought about this before, but I believe that it doesn't cross word
boundaries, at least for speakers of Cdn Eng.  The first person sing pronoun
is always low central. And the first "i" in "night time" would be raised,
while that in "nigh time" would not.

Victoria

Victoria Neufeldt, Merriam-Webster, Inc.
47 Federal Street, P.O. Box 281
Springfield, MA  01102
Tel. (413) 734-3134 ext 124
Fax  (413) 827-7262

> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf
> Of Beverly Flanigan
> Sent: Thursday, September 02, 1999 3:55 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: I Scream for Ice Cream
>
>
> In my Minnesota raising/centralizing (it isn't just Canadian!), I
> do indeed
> raise across the word boundary, and the saying works perfectly; we said it
> all the time as kids.  The only time I use the low central /aI/
> is when the
> pronoun stands alone.  I would think the same happens in southern/eastern
> Canada.
>
>
> At 03:40 PM 9/2/99 -0400, you wrote:
> >Barbara,
> >
> >Canadian raising does not cross word boundaries?
> >
> >dInIs (who was not taught to look both ways before he crossed word
> >boundaries as a child)
> >
> >>A saying of my '30s and '40s childhood was "I scream, you scream, we all
> >>scream for ice cream." But it works better in AE than CE because of the
> >>Canadian Raising in "ice cream" stressed on the first syllable.
> >>
> >>Barbara Harris
> >
> >Dennis R. Preston
> >Professor of Linguistics
> >Department of Linguistics and Languages
> >Michigan State University
> >East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
> >preston at pilot.msu.edu
> >Office: (517)353-0740
> >Fax: (517)432-2736
> >
>