diabetes

[Dennis R. Preston]

Well, I take back some of my stress-rlaated vowel-quality ramblings.
I was thinking only of the schwa versus [I] pronunciation, but some
people have pointed out (and I have certainly heard) an [i]
pronunciation but with a following voiced consonant. I wonder now
(and this is surely lexical) if you can get [i] without a voiced
consonant? - [-is]. I think I have never heard it.

dInIs

>The discussion is proceeding as if the variant under discussion is just a
>vowel, but as DInIs points out, stress also appears to be a variable here.
>It appears that in American English we tend not to have the lax vowel if
>that syllable has secondary/tertiary stress. Or maybe it's strong syllable
>versus weak syllable.  Anyway, this is probably a lexical rather than
>phonological thing.  Are there any other disease names that manifest this
>variation?  I can't think of any.
>DMLance
>
>>  From: "Dennis R. Preston" <preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU>
>>  Reply-To: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 13:14:12 -0500
>>  To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>  Subject: Re: diabetes
>>
>>  Ya'll should remember that some schwa-like sounds are more [I] like
>>  in southern speech. If one does not give some stress to the last
>>  syllable (permitting [i]), it's going to end up as a schwa; if that
>>  schwa is more /I/ like, some of y'all northerners might have been
>>  fooled. That is, it may simply be vowel reduction with regional
>>  quality variation.
>>
>>  On the other hand, that variation may have led to "real" /I/
>>  pronunciations (although that would seem to require some degree of
>>  stress). (I just noticed I called the phoneme rather than the phone
>>  "real." Heaven help me!)
>>
>>  Of course, "medical -itis" (the spelling only) may also play a role here.
>>
>>  dInIs (who always notes the more [I]-like pronunciation of his last
>>  syllable, even when unstressed, the farther south he goes)
>>
>>  PS: I'm just jerkin y'all around by putting the apostrophe in
>>  different places in ya'll. Y'all don't need to write in about it no
>>  more.
>>
>>
>>
>>>  Alice:
>>>
>>>>  For what it's worth, I've seen the spelling "diabetis" fairly
>>>>  regularly from certain posters on the usenet diabetes support groups.
>>>>  I've never understood where this came from, as it's certainly not
>>>>  something I've noticed here in the northeast. One particular poster,
>>>>  who used to use this spelling *a lot* is a good enough writer that
>>>>  the "mis-spelling" really stood out. She's lived in Alaska most of
>>>>  her adult life, but, if I remember the autobiographical details she's
>>>>  posted correctly, she grew up in Michigan (I'm not sure where).
>>>
>>>  This gets weirder.  I've never seen the *spelling* "diabetis", just the
>>>  pronunciation.  But then, I may not be reading the right kind of
>>>literature.
>>>  Anne G
>>
>>  --
>>  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
>>

--
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