the curious phonology of Wisconsin

[Laurence Horn]

At 9:52 AM -0500 11/22/04, Mark A. Mandel wrote:
>Larry Horn sez:
>
>>>>
>
>At 6:13 PM -0500 11/21/04, Dennis R. Preston wrote:
>>wI - skan - s at n
>
>or more accurately w at -
>
>         [...]
>
>I've always regarded that as a kind of familiarity-breeds-least-effort
>effect, not unanalogous to "loovull" below.
>
><<<
>
>"Least effort" is notoriously (?) subjective. For me, syllable-initial /sC/
>takes MORE effort, not less, than coda /-s/ followed by onset /C-/.

I admit I don't know enough to be able to empirically argue the point, but...

>And if
>/sC-/ is more efficient to produce, why hasn't it spread across the whole
>lexicon?

...it does tend to occur hand-in-hand with loss of transparency, as
in the "mi-stake" vs. "mis-took" examples we were just discussing, or
e.g. "di-sturb", "di-stort", "di-stinct" vs. "dis-taste",
"dis-temper".  There's even less effort involved after the
resyllabification if you then drop the now totally unstressed first
syllable, whence "Sconsin" for many native Badger Staters.  (It's
even a shibboleth, as in Kenny Mayne's pronunciation on ESPN's
SportsCenter.)

L