"wh" words - was "no subject" (UNCLASSIFIED)

David Bowie db.list at PMPKN.NET
Wed Jul 21 06:56:45 UTC 2010


From:    Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at WMICH.EDU>

[Referring to the <wh> sound in the which~witch contrast:]

> It's usually simply a voiceless "w" among people who have it in the
> States, as far as I know.

In Wasatch Front (and Wasatch Back, i'm pretty sure) Utah, where this
distinction survives, there's actually intraspeaker variation between
producing <wh> as a voiceless [w] and as a [hw] cluster, as well as a
fully voiced [w]. I haven't analyzed it anywhere close to deeply
enough to be able to say more than that all these variants exist,
though.

David Bowie

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