free variation in pronunciation

[Victoria Neufeldt]

How free is free anyway?  I don't know of any studies of this.  But I was
thinking of my own prons, and I too vary between /ai/ and /e/ for 'either'
and 'neither', but usually using /ai/ as the pron I grew up with.  (There's
nothing pretentious about it, as far as I'm concerned.)  However, in
thinking about contexts, I see that it isn't a free variation, but seems to
be determined by context.  E.g. I don't think I use /ai/ in the phrase "me
neither".  It wouldn't sound right, perhaps because I've only heard the
phrase with the /e/ pron, or perhaps because the /e/ pron echoes the /e/ in
'me'.  Other examples of variation for me are 'proved' and 'proven' for past
participle.  Here it's syntax or rhythm that determines the choice, I think.
At the end of a clause, 'proven' seems to fit better ("It hasn't been
proven" vs. "You haven't proved it").  But I'm sure there are instances
where I've used 'proved' in the first construction and 'proven' in the
second, without thinking twice about it.  So maybe that's free variation.
With the noun 'address' it seems to be the rhythm of the sentence that
determines where the stress falls.  Or how fast you're speaking . . .

I suspect that even when we think we're varying freely between choices,
there's always something -- perhaps subconscious -- in the linguistic or
social context that produces one or the other. And of course there's always
what might be called the "echo" factor that influences these variable prons.
When the person or people you're talking to are using one pron or form, the
natural tendency is probably to use it too in that situation if it is at all
part of your dialect.  But perhaps such subconscious influences shouldn't be
considered in determining whether the variation is free.  (It's like the
discussion of whether there are any true synonyms -- you'll probably never
get to any conclusion because people are using different concepts of
synonymy.)

Victoria

Victoria Neufeldt
1533 Early Drive
Saskatoon, Sask.
S7H 3K1
Canada

Lynne Murphy, Monday, April 02, 2001 5:29 PM
> Alice Faber wrote:
> >
> > Agreed. Either and neither with /ai/ have always struck me as
> > pretentious, and, consequently, I pronounce both with /e/, unless I'm
> > *trying* to be pretentious, not something I often do. But, I think
> > Lynne was asking about people for whom it's *not* pretentious and who
> > use the two pronunciations interchangeably.
>
> Actually, I'm not asking about people who use nayther/ayther at all!  I'm
> asking for other examples of lexical free variation.  Rest assured that
> some people do have both  pronunciations and use them interchangeably.
> Obviously, this is not possible in all dialects, but is in mine.
> I used to
> think that the /ay/ pronunciation was more emphatic in my speech,
> until some-
> one pointed out to me that I use both in non-emphatic and
> emphatic contexts.
>
> I'm just wondering if anyone else can think of any other words
> with such free
> variation intradialectally.
>
> Lynne
>