laxing of high front vowel before /g/ and in quiche

[Mark A. Mandel]

Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> writes:

>>>>>
Right; that was me--and, as noted in the dissertation I cited, it's
somewhat more general in Pittsburgh and, I assume, Southern Ohio
(which, as Beverly pointed out, also shares the "Pittsburghese"
monophthongization feature yielding "dahntahn").  The laxing rule
applies before /l/ as well as /g/, and to a range of non-low tense
vowels:  /i/ laxes to [I], /e/ to [E], and /u/ and /o/ both to [U].
<<<<<

This is way out of range, but how about Chicago? I learned a song called
"The Lincoln Park Pirates" from a tape, including a reference to /mIgz/
Field. Not until this summer, visiting Chicago for the ALA convention and
staying a couple of blocks from Lincoln Park, did I learn that it is
spelled "Meigs".* I would have read the "ei" as /aI/ but I can easily see
it being /i:/. But not /I/, without such laxing as you describe.

* (Checking on the spelling just now, I found http://friendsofmeigs.org/ ,
which includes a live camera view. Apparently the field is threatened. But
this is OT.)

-- Mark