<html>
<body>
<font size=3>At 08:00 AM 7/31/2003 -0400, you wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>2) /KS/ IS MORE LIKELY TO REDUCE TO
/S/, BUT /TS/ WOULD MORE<br>
NATURALLY ASSIMILATE BY PALATALIZATION AND YIELD /CH/, A FREQUENT<br>
PROCESS ACROSS WORD BOUNDARIES IN ENGLISH ("EAT YET" -
/I-CHET/) BUT<br>
APPARENTLY NOT PRODUCTIVE IN CURRENT ENGLISH (E.G., NO "HITCH
AND<br>
MISSES" FOR "HITS AND MISSES").</blockquote><br>
If I may disagree with my learned colleague (hi dInIs), /ks/ is very
unlikely to palatalize before /E/, since palatalization in English in its
productive form only occurs before /j/ (or /y/ for the Americanists among
us)--so 'eat yet', 'betcha', 'as you are aware' [aeZu..] etc.
If /ts/ is followed by /j/ you do get palatalization ('what's your name:
[watS@rneim])<br><br>
I also suspect the pronunciation with /k/ is by what historical linguists
call 'contamination' with things like 'except'. I have also heard
the pronunciation [E'sEt@r@], and have no problem with /E/ in an open
syllable, but suspect it is unstable and will shift to something
schwa-like (either a true schwa or cap-i). <br><br>
Won't it be nice when we can use IPA in e-mail!<br><br>
Geoff </font></body>
</html>