Pronunciation of "death, dead"

[Alice Faber]

Dennis R. Preston said:
>>Rudy,
>
>In NZ English all /E/ vowels (the vowel of "bet") raise to /I/ (the
>vowel of "hit"), not just the ones before nasals, like in Standard
>American English. It was cool to hear "Dennis" pronounced correctly
>while I was there, but puzzling to hear someone ask if I was "riddy"
>(i.e., "ready").
>
>The /I/ is relatively tenser than ours and could leave you thinking
>you heard an /iy/.

Indeed. When my sister visited New Zealand a few years back, she came
back with two caricature pronunciations: [iy]xcellent and y[iy]s.
--
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Alice Faber                                             faber at haskins.yale.edu
Haskins Laboratories                                  tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
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