90

[Herb Stahlke]

I have a nasal alveolar tap there.  No [n].  The way the suffix -ty
behaves suggests that the consonant is a lenis stop.  Lenis stops
assimilate in all the ways discussed below.  In very careful, almost
over-enunciated speech, I can get an aspirated fortis stop, but only
by placing secondary stress on the suffix.  Historically it's probably
a fortis stop /t/, but in contemporary AmE I suspect it's more of a
spelling pronunciation.

Herb

On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 11:28 AM, Randy Alexander
<strangeguitars at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Randy Alexander <strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      90
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Does anyone normally pronounce the /t/ in "ninety" as a voiceless
> (aspirated) plosive?
> I guess that applies to 80, 70, 60, 50, 40, 30, and 20, but it seems
> to me that 90 most normally gets voiced.
>
> --
> Randy Alexander
> Jilin City, China
> My Manchu studies blog:
> http://www.bjshengr.com/manchu
>
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