Truespel Analysis of USA English - Book One

[Dennis R. Preston]

>arnold,

I was trying to make a distinction between the only archaic wh-w and
the truly ancient ow+r/oh+r, but you have clearly out-anciented me. I
might save my terminology by calling the distinctions you note
'prehistoric.'

dInIs



>On Aug 10, 2004, at 8:20 AM, dInIs wrote:
>
>>What about the ancient distinction between long o and open o before r?
>
>did you mean to say "archaic"?
>
>me, i think it's about time to revive a distinction between "meet" and
>"meat".  and to restore the k in "knife", "knee", etc.; i mean, how do
>people tell the difference between "night" and "knight" in speech?
>such a terrible loss of useful distinctions!
>
>don't re-spell, re-pronounce!
>
>arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)


--
Dennis R. Preston
University Distinguished Professor
Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic,
        Asian and African Languages
Wells Hall A-740
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA
Office: (517) 353-0740
Fax: (517) 432-2736