Popsicle

[Laurence Horn]

>On Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 1:38 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>>
>>  At 4:23 PM +0100 4/5/10, Damien Hall wrote:
>>  >Larry and Paul commented on the non-pronunciation of the /s/ in
>>  >'Fudgesicle'. Possibly it is dialectal, but isn't the simplest explanation
>>  >phonetic / phonological? It seems to me very likely that in a sequence of
>>  >
>>  >affricate /J/ + fricative /s/
>>  >
>>  >- which could be simplified to
>>  >
>>  >(/d/ +) voiced fricative /Z/ + fricative /s/
>>  >
>>  >one of the two will get elided, at least in fast speech. If you believe in
>>  >the Obligatory Contour Principle (not saying I don't, but not everyone
>>  >does!), that would be one way of describing it.
>>
>>  Phonology/phonetics is relevant to be sure, but I'd never pronounce
>  > John Hodgson's name [haJ at n] rather than [haJs at n], and I'm sure it's
>>  not just frequency (in that this would be the case even I were
>>  Hodgson's cousin, or Jon Stewart, or the other guy in those Mac vs.
>>  PC commercials).
>
>Sorry, Larry, that's John *Hodgman*. Perhaps you're thinking of
>Islamic scholar
>Marshall Hodgson, Nixon's Secretary of Labor James Hodgson, or Mysterious
>Science Theater 3000 cohost Joel Hodgson?
>
Whoops.  So you're telling me my pronunciation of "Hodgman" as
[haJs at n] is idiosyncratic?  OK, in the possible world in which he was
named "Hodgson", I wouldn't dream of assimilating his /s/.  And then
there's "Dodge City"; always [daJsIdi] never [daJIdi].  I know,
doesn't count.

LH

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