free variation in pronunciation

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 10:18 PM 4/2/01 -0400, you wrote:
>James A. Landau (or Snake?) wrote:
>
>Somebody else mentioned words which can begin with either e- or i-, and might
>thus be pronounced differently, but couldn't think of any examples. I think
>he/she was driving at words begiining with en- or in-, such as
>endorse/indorse.
>Hasn't that distinction in pronunciation been pretty much lost, at least
>in the
>US? Does the "in-" variation in such words tend to be British, and the "en-"
>American? I tend to spell them en- and pronounce them In-.

You're right; I was thinking of words like "endorse/indorse."  My focus was
on what I thought was free variation in spelling, but perhaps the
constraint is British vs. American English, as you suggest.  But the
spelling difference may lead to a pronunciation difference too; not all
Americans merge /I/ and /E/, so for non-mergers spelling may trigger a
split.  (I'll risk self-report and note that I don't have the merger.)



_____________________________________________
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