/Z/ and /dZ/

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:03 AM -0500 3/22/03, Mai Kuha wrote:
>Maybe this isn't related to the issue of final /Z/, but I could have sworn I
>heard Rumsfeld say "regime" with /dZ/ last night, and so I wonder if the
>choice between /Z/ and /dZ/ might go beyond class: doesn't "regime" with
>/dZ/ sound so much more patriotic?
>
>-Mai


And, crucially, less French.

L

>
>On 3/21/03 9:20 PM, Herbert Stahlke opined:
>
>>  It's pretty widely known that some English speakers have /Z/ only
>>  intervocalically and /dZ/ finally, initial /Z/ being educated usage and
>>  rare.  Last week I graded a phonetics project involving vowel tensing before
>>  alveo-palatals, and from the tapes and the demographic information the
>>  students had recorded it was the /Z/ vs. /dZ/ choice in final position was a
>>  class marker.  All of the speakers who had no final /Z/ were working class.
>>
>>  This was a small sample, about 35 speakers in all, and nearly all drawn from
>>  the Muncie area, so I wouldn't want to generalize to readily, but does this
>>  choice serve as a class marker in other parts of the country too?
>>
>>  Herb
>>