More language change on the fly (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Aug 27, 2007, at 10:59 AM, Beverly Flanigan wrote:

> Cf. "united" pronounced as "uninted"?
>
> At 01:11 PM 8/27/2007, you wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
>> Subject:      Re: More language change on the fly (UNCLASSIFIED)
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ----------
>>
>> On Aug 27, 2007, at 9:03 AM, Bill Mullins wrote:
>>
>> > Maybe "relented" grew out of "related"?
>>
>> nice idea.  that would make it phonological at root: hearing some
>> spontaneous nasalization on the /e/ of "related" as representing an /
>> n/ (following a somewhat raised variant of /E/).  such perceptions
>> (in both directions: hearing spontaneous nasalization as an /n/,
>> hearing an /n/ as merely spontaneous nasalization) are very common,
>> especially in unaccented syllables, but also sometimes in accented
>> syllables; they are detectable in misspellings (with {n} written
>> where it doesn't belong, and with {n} omitted where it does).

yes.  not only the pronunciation of "united" with a nasal flap
between the second and third syllables, but also the corresponding
spelling: astonishing number of hits for {uninted}.

arnold

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