[Lexicog] Turkey

[Fritz Goerling]

Patrick,

You orta have asked him to write a dissertation based on field testing. ;-)

Fritz


  In my idiolect, as a native speaker of RP (Received Pronunciation,
Southern
  British English), "sought" and "sort" are pronounced identically.  I am
  non-rhotic.

  The "r" in "sort"  adn "bird" is realized differently in different rhotic
  accent of
  English --- ranging from retroflex and vowel colour in general American to
  strongly trilled /r/ in some Scottish accents.

  Back in the severites I met a learned professor of English language who
was
  convinced he could hear a pronunciation difference between "finish" and
  "Finnish" in RP. Neither I nor A.C. Gimson (who was present, and far
better
  qualified than me to make this judgement) could hear any difference in the
  pronunciation of these two words in various contexts. He was unconvinced.
  We wanted to get him into a speech lab and record him saying things like
  "I think the Finnish team will finish in the top three", for further
  analysis.

  It's amazing what people can convince themselves that they hear.

  Patrick



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