Error in Truespel dictionary?

[Dennis Preston]

When items do not "cluster" in an onset or coda, I Iike to avoid the
word "cluster," but we appear to be talking about "spelling clusters"
here as Ben points out when he talks about "straddling. "I'll stick
to codas. (I.e., for me there is an onset cluster in the 2nd syllable
of "Goodspeed" but no coda cluster in either syllable.)

Since languages abhor codas, ordinary articulation of nearly all the
items suggested below are simplified:

"feldspar" will have a simplification of the  coda /ld/ cluster to
/l/ (and us /l/ vocalizers will take it  one step further).

"handspring" will have its /d/ lost from the /nd/ coda cluster, and
then many will lose /n/ (with appropriate nasalization of the
preceding vowel).

Since our brains make our ears hear phonemes (why should we "hear"
phones, allophones, and phonological processes if we want to
comprehend?), we find many speakers who vigorously object to our
pointing out these ordinary pronunciations, swearing they are fully
pronounced in their own speech, but there is no need to review here
how one may be deceived in self report, particularly in pronunciation
and even more particularly when prescriptivist notions intervene.

Since there is no coda cluster in "Goodspeed," it would suffer /d/
loss less frequently and only perhaps in allegro speech or in
varieties that are more likely to delete even single coda items,
particularly alveolars in English.

dInIs





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>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
>Subject:      Re: Error in Truespel dictionary?
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>On Sun, Apr 6, 2008 at 7:43 PM, sagehen <sagehen at westelcom.com> wrote:
>>
>>  In "tradspel" the cluster /dsp/ is nearly unspeakable(!); an added
>>  /i/ would have helped.
>
>Of all the complaints one could make, that's an odd one. My middle name is
>Goodspeed (a family name), and I don't recall the /dsp/ cluster ever being
>difficult for anyone. Nor, I imagine, would native speakers have much trouble
>with more complex clusters like the /ldsp/ of "feldspar" or the /ndspr/ of
>"handspring", since they straddle syllable boundaries in the usual fashion.
>
>
>--Ben Zimmer
>
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--
Dennis R. Preston
University Distinguished Professor
Department of English
Morrill Hall 15-C
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48864 USA

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