FW: New Britain, Connecticut

[Laurence Horn]

At 6:12 PM -0500 12/27/01, Frank Abate wrote:
>What Alice refers to below is true in native central CT dialect.  Words
>affected include mountain, mitten, and the like, with (expected) medial
>flapped-t being realized as a glottal stop, when followed by syllabic n.
>These speakers do not have the glottal stop in words such as bottle, as
>characteristic of NYC dialects.  I do not know of other clear markers to
>this dialect.  It is an r-ful dialect, as are most to the west of the
>Connecticut River, within the state.
>
>This from personal observation (over about 20 years as a resident of the
>area) by a lexicographer, not formally trained in phonetics.
>
>larry (horn), further comments?
>
>Frank Abate
>
Well, yes, since you asked (sorry to reply before reading the other
messages in the thread, but I'm just back from a family Christmas
trip and getting ready for the LSA/ADS so my online time is limited)--

The speech pattern Frank describes characterizes my daughter (now 17)
but not my son (19), even though they both grew up in metro New
Haven.  Maybe it has to do with the friends they've each hung out
with, but there it is.  (Actually I'm not sure my daughter ALWAYS has
[?] for the medial /t/ in "mitten" (as you predict, never in
"bottle"); I may just be noticing it when she does, but I'm pretty
sure nobody else in the family has it, not even the cats.)

larry