Accents in Am. English

[Dennis R. Preston]

My favorite was a (now defunct?) chain called Burger Frësh. Umlauted
burgers are doubtless frësher!

dInIs


>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


Dennis R. Preston
Department of Linguistics and Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
preston at pilot.msu.edu
Office: (517)353-0740
Fax: (517)432-2736