Hollowed ground.

[Dennis R. Preston]

Are we having some phonetic realization of phoneme problem in the
hallowed-hollowed discussion? Vowels before /r/ are notoriously
retracted (F2) and the phonetic realization of an /ae/ before an /l/
could clearly be heard as a phonetic [a] (or even farther back) and
misinterpreted as an example of phoneic /a/ rather than /ae/.

Of course, it's difficult to tell when such phonetically cued
"misinterpretations" involve phonemic reclassification, but most of
us reckon that historical linguistics is a psycholinguistic
phenomenon as well.

dInIs

>When I was attending Catholic grade school in Queens, NY in the 1950s, the
>Lord's Prayer began for us "Our Father, who art in heaven, hollowed be thy
>name..."
>
>Steve Boatti

--
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