Etcetera

[Dennis R. Preston]

Geoff,

I think you misread me. I agree that /ks/ is very unlikely to
palatalize (and I suggested deletion was more likely, although there
are indeed other possibilities). But I stand by the historical
process of assimilation of /ts/ either partial (palatalized-/ch/) or
total.

dInIs

>At 08:00 AM 7/31/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>
>>2) /KS/ IS MORE LIKELY TO REDUCE TO /S/, BUT /TS/ WOULD MORE
>>NATURALLY ASSIMILATE BY PALATALIZATION AND YIELD /CH/, A FREQUENT
>>PROCESS ACROSS WORD BOUNDARIES IN ENGLISH ("EAT YET" - /I-CHET/) BUT
>>APPARENTLY NOT PRODUCTIVE IN CURRENT ENGLISH (E.G., NO  "HITCH AND
>>MISSES" FOR "HITS AND MISSES").
>>
>
>If I may disagree with my learned colleague (hi dInIs), /ks/ is very
>unlikely to palatalize before /E/, since palatalization in English
>in its productive form only occurs before /j/ (or /y/ for the
>Americanists among us)--so 'eat yet', 'betcha', 'as  you are aware'
>[aeZu..] etc.  If /ts/ is followed by /j/ you do get palatalization
>('what's your name: [watS at rneim])
>
>I also suspect the pronunciation with /k/ is by what historical
>linguists call 'contamination' with things like 'except'.  I have
>also heard the pronunciation [E'sEt at r@], and have no problem with
>/E/ in an open syllable, but suspect it is unstable and will shift
>to something schwa-like (either a true schwa or cap-i).
>
>Won't it be nice when we can use IPA in e-mail!
>
>Geoff

--
Dennis R. Preston
Professor of Linguistics
Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic,
      Asian & African Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824-1027
e-mail: preston at msu.edu
phone: (517) 353-9290