For words ending in "-ity" is it ~t or ~d

[James Harbeck]

>I found differences between the sounds in spoken words and the phonetic
>spellings. No one here seems to dispute the fact that "ity" is pronounced
>rather with a d-like sound as I've pointed out.

Well, there seems to have been a certain level of dispute over
whether that sound is a tap (or flap) or a solid [d]... But if you're
designing a new spelling system to reflect the way things are really
said, you'll want to reflect the way thing sare said when they're
said carefully, I presume. All sorts of things change when people
speak casually. In English, both /t/ and /d/ have a tap as an
allophone, but of course it's not a separate phoneme. Now, if you say
"I see disparity in this parody," and someone else says "What? I
can't hear you," you'll probably say [dIspErIti] with a clear, crisp
[t] and [pEr at di] with a definite d, even though you had a moment
before most likely said them both with the same sequence of sounds
starting at [p]. Naturally, this more careful form is also what the
dictionaries tend to reflect.

When you hear people saying the -ity endings with the sound in
question, you're hearing the relaxed way of saying it, but how do you
propose to get the target articulation, the one that they have in
mind and that guides their  pronunciation but that they seldom
articulate in full detail? I know that the relaxed form influences
understanding of the citation form; I've certainly seen the spelling
"celebrady" for "celebrity." But among well-educated users, aware of
the spelling etc., the target articulation, the one that they would
shout or say to someone hard of hearing or say in the most formal way
possible, will have a [t]. And will yet be a tap or flap most of the
rest of the time.

>  There is no other way to
>simply notate that sound other than with a "d".  English dictionaries do not
>have a symbol for an r flap or tap.  It does not exist in Engilsh and I find
>it strange that anyone would say that it's a flap when native tongue
>Americans don't go through the tongue motions to make a flap in their normal
>phoneme set.

Well, that "anyone" includes thousands of phoneticians, I reckon.
"Murder" is normally said with a flap by many, perhaps most,
Americans and Canadians. You can say that it isn't, but you're up
against a lot of experts who disagree with you. It's not a motion
that requires a lingual detour when we use it; the entire reason for
its use is that it takes less effort. But that flap is not a separate
phoneme, certainly; it's an allophone, in this case of /t/, in other
cases of /d/ and even at times /n/ (though nasalized in that case).
We have no shortage of allophone that not only aren't in the phoneme
sent but that some people will even think they can't say -- the
semivowel that /l/ usually turns into when Albertans say "Calgary,"
for instance.

>A tap, I suppose, is just a short d.  No doubt many sounds have allophones
>(slightly different versions of the same sound usually usually due to
>interference with adjacent phonemes).  But dictionary notation doesn't get
>so technical.

Yes, I think we're in agreement on that much. Dictionaries aren't
really detailed phonetic expositions. They're references with a
certain purpose in mind, and exact description of casual speech isn't
it.

James Harbeck.

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