the curious phonology of wisconsin

[Damien Hall]

Sorry if this is a little behind the times.  As I don't receive ADS-L while
it's
hot but only once a day, I know there have been several replies to Mark's point

"Least effort" is notoriously (?) subjective. For me, syllable-initial /sC/
takes MORE effort, not less, than coda /-s/ followed by onset /C-/. And if
/sC-/ is more efficient to produce, why hasn't it spread across the whole
lexicon?

since he made it.

Since no-one has done it, though, I think it's worth pointing out that there
*are* dialects in which /sC-/ has spread across the whole lexicon.  Mine,
Standard Southern British English, is one of them.  I think I have the
following systematically:

/wIskOnsIn/  -->  [wI.sgOn.sIn]
/mIstejk/     -->  [mI.sdejk]

I'm pretty sure that that's still my pattern.  I also remember remarking about a
year
ago on the difference between my 'teen' numbers and those that I perceived from
many Americans:

(eg) /fIfti:n/  -->  BrE [fIf.di:n], 'GenAmE' [fIf.ti:n]

which seems to be a similar pattern, if not exactly the same.

If I have picked up [wIs.kOn.sIn], it would just be from having been in the
States for the past just over a year now.

Damien Hall
University of Pennsylvania