wheel barrels?

[Dennis R. Preston]

>If in "frontoparietal" you put less stress on the -to syllable than
>on the fron- (as I am sure you must), it is easily confused with an
>/l/ (as I showed), since the vowel is reduced (in fact, reduced to
>something that sounds more like /l/ to an  l-vocalizer than if it
>were completely schwaed). That said, I am also in agreement with you
>that lexical facts (or frequency or identity) will certainly guide
>(or misguide) hearing. My Michigan neighbors, who say something that
>sounds like "sacks" to me (when the say "socks") are often
>misunderstood (since "I've got a hole in my sacks/socks" are both
>pragmatically likely). But their "I got cot by the police" is rarely
>understood by me, since, although 'cot' is a fine, high-frequency
>word, it won't fit the syntax. And, of course, when they say "I shet
>my pants," have no trouble at all, since I lack the lexical item
>"shet."

dInIs

>




>I'm just a blue-collar bloke, but I can add some anecdotal information on
>what really happens. If I dictate a piece of text to a typist, I might use
>the word "frontoparietal". I speak very clearly and I do not reduce the
>second "o" to a schwa or anything like that. What is typed? This: "frontal
>parietal". If I point out the error to the typist, and speak the same word
>the next day, elongating and stressing that "o" so that there's no way it
>could be "-al" (IMHO), then what is typed? Probably "frontal parietal"
>again. Other similar compound words with "-o-" get similar treatment. I've
>experienced this hundreds of times, and I've given up on trying to get it
>typed right; I just edit the text myself afterward. The same result was
>obtained with multiple typists. The lesson (I think): /ou/ will often be
>understood as /l/ or /@l/ if an apparently acceptable word (or words) will
>result ... doesn't matter whether the /ou/ is stressed or whatever. I
>suppose this is at least approximately in agreement with Dennis.
>
>I agree entirely with Larry that the phenomenon depends on whether the
>version with /l/ seems "reasonable". In the case of "wheelbarrow" this is
>sort of folk-etymology. I also used this folk-etymology concept in my
>(entirely speculative!) etymologizing of "bulldyker" < "Boudicca" (which I
>posted here a while back): again "bull" is more recognizable than "bo" or
>"bu" and seems to fit the context.
>
>-- Doug Wilson


--
Dennis R. Preston
University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics
Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages
A-740 Wells Hall
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824
Phone: (517) 432-3099
Fax: (517) 432-2736
preston at msu.edu