"ese" suffix

Prof. R. Sussex sussex at UQ.EDU.AU
Thu Apr 10 07:07:51 UTC 2003


I have been wondering from afar if there is a tendency for final
devoicing of voiced obstruents in American English - or at least of
final -s.

Certainly plurals and genitives seem to do this in some cases with
some speakers: so McDonald's is sometimes /-ts/, with retrogressive
assimilation of (de-)voicing. It may be morphologically conditioned:
I have heard Chinese as /-s/, but not cheese as /-s/.

Roly Sussex


--

Roly Sussex
Professor of Applied Language Studies
Department of French, German, Russian, Spanish and Applied Linguistics
School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies
The University of Queensland
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AUSTRALIA

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