Query: "thoo"

[Beverly Flanigan]

And I hear "liberry" in Minnesota and Ohio as well.  It's not
geographically based at all, I agree.  However, I do hear r-less "through"
often in African American English.  Consonant cluster simplification is
most common finally and somewhat common medially, but I assume it can occur
initially too--right, phonologists?

At 01:44 PM 11/27/01 -0500, you wrote:
>On Tuesday, November 27, 2001, at 01:18  PM, Gerald Cohen wrote:
>
>>    FWIW, "through" was the first thought that popped into my mind too
>>upon reading the initial query. Also, perhaps the loss of "r" here
>>started in the plural ("They're through" rather than "He's through"),
>>putting 2 r's in proximity and leading to the tendency (not law)
>>which linguists call "dissimilation to zero." A parallel example
>>would be a pronunciation I have often heard in the Ozarks: "liberry"
>>for "library."
>The Ozarks extend into upstate New York? Seriously, in my elementary
>school, 30 miles north of Times Square, "liberry" (as opposed to "libRary"
>) was a "mispronunciation" often corrected by my teachers, so I suppose it
>was frequently used by at least some of my classmates. In my mind,
>"liberry" is on par with "Febuary".
>
>Alice
>--
>Alice Faber
>Haskins Laboratories                                    Tel: (203) 865-6163
>270 Crown St                                            FAX: (203) 865-8163
>New Haven, CT 06511 USA                              faber at haskins.yale.edu


_____________________________________________
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