Accents in Am. English

[Laurence Horn]

Alice Faber writes:

>Laurence Horn wrote:
>>
>>Not only doesn't Häagen Dazs have any meaning in any language, I don't
>>believe we're likely to run into too many real world instances of a long
>>vowel with the first half umlauted (hence presumably fronted) and the
>>second not.
>
>Given that the reverse (diphthong moving from back to front, with
>concommitant change in rounding) *does* occur, even if it isn't
>cross-linguistically all that common (oy!), can we really assume that
>the reverse doesn't?
>
Well, there's nothing wrong with diphthongs like "Hyagen" or "Heagen", but
the spelling -äa- indicates to me some sort of vowel disharmony between two
halves of the diphthong, which would seem quite rare indeed.  But maybe
that's why the ice cream is so pricey--supply & demand and all.  (I do love
their mango sorbet, umlaut--or if Herb is right, reverse diaeresis--be
damned.)

larry