A nice Southernism . . .

[LanDi Liu]

On Thu, Sep 4, 2008 at 9:09 PM,  <RonButters at aol.com> wrote:
> BULB is an exception, as is HERB; /l/ and /r/ are vocoids and do no
> participate in the CCS rule. Note that for many speakers there would be no /
> r/ in
> HERB, and /l/ becomes something like a /w/.
>
> You are simply wrong about WASP. Th loss of final /p/ in WASP, CLASP, etc. i
> s
> so well documented that even if you have never heard it, if you have every
> read any elementary scholarly work on American sociolinguistic variability,
> it
> is there (see, e.g., Fromkin and Rodman 1998: 413). The /l/-and-/r/ exceptio
> n
> is usually mentioned as well.

OK, now I see where you're coming from.  Initially we were talking
about "fin for myself", which Arnold identified as run-of-the-mill t/d
deletion (and [E]-->[I]), and you said was not a "Southernism".  I
agree on both points.

But then you started talking about final consonant cluster
simplification, in a variety which I have never heard.  But that makes
sense now too after having taken a look at the index to Fromkin &
Rodman's book (damn Google books snippet view being no help), I see
that this CCS is a feature of AAVE.  My experiences with AAVE are
mostly limited to my growing up in Cincinnati, OH, in the 70s, and
what I heard every day on the subway, etc. when I lived in NYC several
years ago.  So while t/d deletion is very widespread (appearing in
most English dialects), CCS is not, which accounts for my not being
aware of it.  (I've also not read much about AAVE.)

--
Randy Alexander
Jilin City, China
My Manchu studies blog:
http://www.bjshengr.com/manchu

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