till

[Beverly Flanigan]

In this area, "quarter till" is very clear if a vowel follows (i.e.,
"eight").  If no time follows, or the time is understood (with or without
repetition), the reply is generally "quarter till."  But last night a
student from Columbus told me (non-casually) that she mixes the two:  "a
quarter to six" but "a quarter till" with no number.  It may be that she's
reinterpreting her fast speech "tuh" as "to"; I'll ask her again using "eight."


At 09:08 AM 10/3/01 -0400, you wrote:
>This is an intersting discussion, but I think it has no resolution at
>the allegro speech level being cited. That is, a reduced "to" and a
>reduced "till" (indeed, even a reduced "until," which, as we have
>been instructed, is the correct form,) may very well end up
>exhibiting the same (minimal) phonetic residue.
>
>We must rely on the examination of less casual speech data (or the
>clever elicitation of data, as in Bill Labov's famous pretense not to
>have understood "fourth floor" to get a more "formal" variant) to
>discover the "underlying" form. For example, reduction does not
>happen in final position, so we might look there to find out what a
>reduced "tuh" really is
>
>What time did you say it was?
>Quarter to (of, till, until, etc...)
>
>in which "quarter tuh" is impossible.
>
>dInIs
>
>TlhovwI at AOL.COM,Net writes:
>>I still can't decide if I'm saying "quater to" or "quarter til(l)".
>>All I
>>get is "quarter t' "!
>
>Sometimes I think I'm say "tuh".
>
>Regards,
>David
>
>barnhart at highlands.com
>
>--
>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


_____________________________________________
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