ont/ahnt (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Laurence Horn]

At 3:32 PM -0400 10/6/10, Wilson Gray wrote:
>On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 10:54 AM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC
><Bill.Mullins at us.army.mil> wrote:
>>  In my post on the subject, where I intentionally typed "ont", it was to
>>  specifically distinguish it from "ahnt". ? That is, in the dialect of the
>>  people whose pronunciation I was trying to reproduce, "ont" did not/does
>>  not equal "ahnt".
>>
>
>What pronunciation *is* it meant to approximate, then? Don't leave me
>hanging! ;-)


Basically the same tongue position but with (more) rounding, perhaps?
I don't rhyme "haunt" or "daunt" (both rounded) with "Kant" or "font"
(un-), so maybe that's the designated distinction, although all
a(u)nts, insects or humans, are /aent/ to me.

LH

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