free variation in pronunciation

[Dennis R. Preston]

Although I think /ay/ther is fancy-pants (compared to down-home
/iy/ther), I also recognize the regionality or even individuality of
that response. I am more concered here with the matter of burden of
proof. Lynne lows as how some people who detect shades of meaning
difference (including 'social meaning') have not presented 'empirical
evidence' to support the claim. I am just as unhappy with "as far as
I can tell" claims about free variation. My experience has been that
every time a little closer look is took, free variation disappears.
This is such a common result in careful investigation, that I would
like to declare it a rule: to wit:

Nothing can be said to be in free variation until extensive research
on the probabilistic influences of phonological, morphological,
syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic (including interactional,
attitudinal, etc...) environments on the item in question has been
carried out.

dInIs' Law (but I forgot which one; I made up too dang many)



>At 06:08 PM 4/2/01 +0100, you wrote:
>>_Either_ and _neither_ have two pronunciations each, and as far as I can
>>tell they are in absolutely free variation within certain speech
>>communities and even speakers.  Sometimes I've heard the claim that one or
>>the other pronunciation is more emphatic, but I've seen little empirical
>>evidence to back this up.
>>
>>A few months ago here we discussed some other variant pronunciations and
>>spellings (e.g, vase, theatre/theater, gray/grey), and came up with
>>semantic distinctions that are (believed to be) made amongst the two
>>variants.  (Thus they aren't free variants.)  Other variants are not 'free'
>>because they mark regional, social, formal (etc.) distinctions.  Are there
>>any other examples of absolutely free variants in lexical pronunciations?
>>By my definition of "absolutely free", they must be equally acceptable in
>>all semantic, social, (in)formal, stylistic (etc.) contexts for a single
>>speaker/speech community.
>>
>>Thanks,
>>Lynne
>>
>>M Lynne Murphy
>>Lecturer in Linguistics
>>School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
>>University of Sussex
>>Brighton BN1 9QH
>>UK
>>
>>phone +44-(0)1273-678844
>>fax   +44-(0)1273-671320
>
>"economic" --> [i] or [E]
>
>There are also some words that can be spelled with initial 'i' or 'e' (and
>presumably are pronounced as [I] or [E]), but I can't think of examples
>this late in the day.
>
>_____________________________________________
>Beverly Olson Flanigan         Department of Linguistics
>Ohio University                     Athens, OH  45701
>Ph.: (740) 593-4568              Fax: (740) 593-2967
>http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm

--
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