Heard on The Judges: " -nim" in possessive

[Laurence Horn]

At 3:33 PM -0500 1/29/09, Wilson Gray wrote:
>Larry, you know that "th(em)" is pronounced "th([i}m}"! What are you
>doing, allowing yourself to be seduced by spelling?

Au contraire, my point--perhaps not optimally expressed--was that the
*spelling* with -em is standardly used to represent this comitative
or whatever construction, regardless of how the unstressed final
vowel of what is usually rendered *orthographically* as -anem is
pronounced within a given community.  For that matter, I couldn't say
whether the first vowel of the comitative is schwa, barred I, or [I].
Indeed, I'm not sure I was ever able to detect the difference between
unstressed schwa, barred I, and [I], despite Henry Gleason's
assertion in his intro text of a minimal pair between "Rosa's" and
"roses" (or, given my own circle of acquaintances at the time,
"Georgia's" and "George's").  The difference can certainly be made
between the members of each pair, but only by stressing the vowel,
which kinda begs the question.

LH

>And since -nim
>always has secondary stress - amongst the colored at least - you're
>not going to hear anyone saying "mama-n[@]m." Rather, you may hear
>"mama-n[I@]," with shwa (I use the spelling, "shwa," because I want
>to, and not in error) being a mere off-glide as the speaker "holds his
>mouth" [cf. the expression, "hold one's mouth right" display the
>proper, respectful demeanor] to pronounce the /m/.
>
>Sledd, James. 1966. "Breaking, Umlaut, and the Southern Drawl."
>Language 42: 18 -41.
>
>-Wilson
>---
>All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
>come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>-----
>-Mark Twain
>
>
>
>On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 2:42 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>>  Subject:      Re: Heard on The Judges: " -nim" in possessive
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  At 2:33 PM -0500 1/29/09, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>>Larry, if you catch an AA speaker saying [nEm] instead of [nIm], kill
>>>him, for he is a traitor to his dialect, a disgrace to his race. :-)
>>>
>>>-Wilson
>>
>>  But I think either AA or EA speakers might use a schwa, [I], or
>>  barred-I in the final syllable and it could still be transcribed as
>>  mom(m)anem or mam(m)anem rather than as -nim, given the psychological
>>  link to "(th)em".  I suspect EA Pittsburghers would not, however,
>>  refer to "yo mamanem house", with any spelling.
>>
>>  LH
>>
>>>---
>>>All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
>>>come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>>>-----
>>>-Mark Twain
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 10:20 AM, Laurence Horn
>>><laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>>>>   ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>>-----------------------
>>>>   Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>>   Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>>>>   Subject:      Re: Heard on The Judges: " -nim" in possessive
>>>>
>>>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>
>>>>   At 9:30 AM -0500 1/29/09, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>>>>Judge Penny (late-forty-ish black woman from Atlanta):
>>>>>
>>>>>"How you gon' have five girlfriends and be so broke that you still
>>>>>livin' in _yo' mama-nim house_?!"
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>I've never heard it expressed this way, before. I would have expected:
>>>>>
>>>>>"... still livin' in the house _wit' cho' mama-nim_?!"
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>   also rendered (for varieties of EA (and AA?) speakers in Pittsburgh
>>>>   and environs as well as southerners of all ethnicities) as "mamanem"
>>>>   and "mommanem", which are slightly more transparent (< 'n' (th)'em)
>>>>
>>>>   LH
>>>>
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