intrusive schwa

[Dennis R. Preston]

Beverly,

Hmmmmm. Here you are defending breaking up consonants and telling us
earlier you like to prouounce the "c" in "arctic" (and I know you are
r-full)

dInIs (who has only one "t" in Antarctica, let alone no "c")

>Not just older speakers; epenthesis of a vowel to break up a "difficult"
>consonant cluster is common and not just dialectal.  I hear 'athelete,
>atheletic' all the time, 'filum' somewhat less.  When I was young, I said
>'groweth' for 'growth' (technically not a consonant cluster, of course, but
>the glide must have induced the intrusive schwa).
>
>
>At 09:02 AM 10/5/99 -0400, you wrote:
>>I've definitely heard the schwa in "fil^m" spoken in New York City (and
>>around it), from somewhat older speakers.
>>
>>Lynne Murphy wrote:
>>
>>> you also hear the schwa in fil^m in south african english, but i always
>>> assumed that was due to non-English-native (Afrikaner and African)
>>> influence.
>>>
>>> lynne
>>> --
>>>
>>> M. Lynne Murphy, Assistant Professor in Linguistics
>>> Department of English, Baylor University
>>> PO Box 97404, Waco, TX 76798 USA
>>> Phone:  254-710-6983     Fax:  254-710-3894
>>> http://www.baylor.edu/~M_Lynne_Murphy
>>
>>Attachment Converted: "c:\eudora\attach\ksetzer.vcf"
>>