"fission" with -zh-?

[Tom Zurinskas]

I agree.  The last vowel in the word "Rosa's" ~Roezuz (~Roesuz) is different (uh) than "roses" ~roeziz (ih).  A problem is that Some foespelz may have a schwa there for both words which would tend one to think they are the same sound.  But the "a" is a clear indicatiion in final positioin of (uh) and plurals "es" (with sounded vowel) are always "ih" (~is or ~iz).  Most are ~iz, though the trend is to replace ~z with ~s, because an "s" is seen so an "s" is said. The last two US presidents do this often.


Tom Zurinskas, Conn 20 yrs, then Tenn 3, NJ 33, now FL 9.
The FREE English-based phonetic converters, URL and text , are at truespel.com



>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Barbara Need
> Subject: Re: "fission" with -zh-?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I make a distinction in the final vowels of Rosa's and roses, but not
> the final vowels of fisson and fishin' (of course, I also use [Z] in
> the former).
>
> Barbara
>
> On 16 Mar 2011, at 1:43 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>
> > At 3/16/2011 12:12 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
> >> At 10:34 PM -0400 3/15/11, Barbara Need wrote:
> >>> And is identical with fishin'?
> >>>
> >>> I remember learning fission and fishin' as a minimal pair in some
> >>> early linguistics class.
> >>>
> >>> Barbara
> >>
> >> Based on the contrast between [@] in the former
> >> and [I] or barred-i in the latter, as in "Rosa's"
> >> vs. "roses" (from Gleason's Intro to Descriptive
> >> Linguistics)? My problem was that I could never
> >> really believe in contrasts resulting from the
> >> difference between two unstressed vowels.
> >
> > I, pretentious moi, believe. fish-un (mission)
> > vs. fish-in. Same for Rosa's vs. roses. And
> > thanks for the title -- it's the book I've been
> > trying for decades to remember, ever since a
> > graduate school course, to look again at his
> > minimal pairs. "light-house keeper" and "light house-keeper", etc.
> >
> > Joel
> >
> > Joel
> >
> >
> >> LH
> >>
> >>> Barbara Need
> >>> Etna, NY
> >>>
> >>> On 15 Mar 2011, at 9:37 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Yes, we few but happy and pretentious few. For
> >>>> me "fission" is "mission", not "vision", so that
> >>>> "fusion" ['fyuZn] is two pairs away from "fission".
> >>>>
> >>>> Joel
> >>>>
> >>>> At 3/15/2011 08:25 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
> >>>>> At 4:05 PM -0400 3/15/11, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >>>>>> "Fizhion" is what they've been saying on the news for years and
> >>>>>> years. I
> >>>>>> suppose some still say "fission," but they must be a real
> >>>>>> minority.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> JL
> >>>>>
> >>>>> We're a proud minority, we happy few. Besides,
> >>>>> we can pun on "Gone Fission", which those fizhion
> >>>>> folks can't.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> LH
> >>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 3:58 PM, Wilson Gray
> >>>>>> wrote:
> >>>>>>> On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 4:22 PM, Laurence Horn > >>>>>>> wrote:
> >>>>>>>> At 12:11 PM -0700 3/15/11, geoffrey nunberg wrote:
> >>>>>>>>> Listening to some nuclear energy experts talking about Japan
> >>>>>>>>> on
> >>>>>>>>> the
> >>>>>>>>> radio this morning, I was led to wonder whether  "fission" is
> >>>>>>>>> the
> >>>>>>>>> only English word in which orthographic [Vssion] can be
> >>>>>>>>> pronounced
> >>>>>>>>> with a voiced fricative. When I checked with my graduate
> >>>>>>>>> students, I
> >>>>>>>>> was surprised to find that that's the pronunciation used by
> >>>>>>>>> all
> >>>>>>>>> but
> >>>>>>>>> one of them (and the one is from S. Africa). If so, it must
> >>>>>>>>> be by
> >>>>>>>>> analogy with "fusion," right?
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> Geoff
> >>>>>>>> So I've always assumed, as with the shift from penult to ult
> >>>>>>>> stress
> >>>>>>>> in "covert" on the model of "overt". Â Something there is that
> >>>>>>>> likes a
> >>>>>>>> minimal pair. Â (Then there's the pronunciation of
> >>>>>>>> "transition" to
> >>>>>>>> rhyme with "incision"...)
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> LH
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Are speakers of BrE still under the impre[Z]ion that
> >>>>>>> "equation" is
> >>>>>>> pronounced "equa[S]ion"?
>
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