Kregg vs. Craig

[Dennis R. Preston]

What makes me think /E/-/e/ conflation  is related to /I/-/i/
conflation (and /u/-/U/ as well), at least before /l/, is the fact
that, at least in our tapes of people from such areas, those who have
"filled" for "field" also have "felled" for "failed" and "pull" for
"pool." Looks pretty staightforward to us. Geography is a problem
since we have tapes of speakers with these conflations from a wide
area, particularly African American speakers from all over the
country.

If this conflation follows from the same conflation before /r/, as I
suspect it does quite naturally, then one would not expect it to
appear in areas where distinctions before /r/ are robust (as in NYC
"Mary"-"merry", as larry so vehemently pointed out).

dInIs

PS: Of course, I know "marry" is also distinct, but since /ae/
apparently has both tense and lax versions inn NYC (hence the complex
/ae/-raising rule), it doesn't really play a role in this "simple"
tense-lax discussion.



>On 7/19/2002 14:21, Laurence Horn wrote the following:
>
>>This last is redolent of Pittsburgh (and maybe cheese-steak eaters to
>>the east, whose "Iggles" sometimes take the filled against
>>Pittsburgh's "Stillers")
>
>Born and raised in Pgh, never say [fIld] for <field> nor [Igl] for <eagle>,
>and yet <Craig> and <peg> have rhymed for me since birth.  Or shortly
>thereafter.
>
>Anyway, what makes you think [i]>[I] conflation is related to [ei]>[E]
>conflation (at least, [ei] is what I assume you hypercorrective types have
>in <Craig>)?
>
>Cheers,
>Scott
>
>_____________________________________________________________
>Scott Sadowsky  --  Spanish-English / English-Spanish Translator
>
>sadowsky at spanishtranslator.org · sadowsky at bigfoot.com
>http://www.spanishtranslator.org
>_____________________________________________________________
>"Patriotism is the principle that will justify the training of wholesale
>murderers."
>    -- Leo Tolstoy

--
Dennis R. Preston
Professor of Linguistics
Department of Linguistics and Languages
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