Preakness

[Dennis R. Preston]

>Even my daddy was a horse gambler, and it was always /prijkn at s/. A
>member of the bigger class.

dInIs

>As I'm not American, people should tell me if I am simply behind the times.
>But
>I wonder whether I have noticed an old sound-change very belatedly coming to
>completion.
>
>>From my reading, the name of Preakness (NJ) is a member of the small class of
>words (eg *great*, *break*) which were not included in the
>sound-change whereby
><ea> came to be pronounced [i:];  according to my reading, Preakness, NJ is
>pronounced [preiknIs].
>
>But, twice in the last two days, I've heard National Public Radio announcers
>pronounce it [prikn at s] ([@] = schwa).  Is this widely-attested?  Could we be
>witnessing a change in the normative pronunciation?
>
>If we are, I wonder how Leakey, Texas is now pronounced.  I've read that it's
>normatively [laeiki] ([ae] = single phoneme).
>
>Damien Hall
>University of Pennsylvania


--
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