Hallucinating distinctions (was New Jersey Dialects)

[Laurence Horn]

At 12:20 PM -0500 10/20/04, Gordon, Matthew J. wrote:
>I don't have a label to offer but I do have some data on the
>construction of distinction between homophones. In a written survey
>of around 2100 people, some 18% claimed to have a difference between
>"hole" and "whole". In discussing this with students, I have had
>some claim to make a distinction but when they're asked to
>demonstrate it out loud, they usually concede that the pair is
>homophonous. Still, some hold to their perceived difference and say
>"they're different, I just can't pronounce them that way right now
>b/c I'm thinking about it too much" or something like that.
>
>The couch/sofa example is different, I think. It's true that there
>are many ways of framing the semantic (or at least pragmatic)
>difference between "couch" and "sofa" (e.g. a sofa seats 4 and a
>couch 3), but I sense a consensus is emerging at least around here
>(the Midwest) in which "sofa" is defined as a nicer/fancier

or more expensive?

>"couch." This is easily confirmed by the fact that furniture stores
>only advertise sofas. I've never seen a "couch" advertised (except
>in the classifieds) even by the low-end furniture retailers. Of
>course, it's likely the case that this semantic distinction was
>contrived originally in the way that Arnold suggests; i.e. by people
>forcing a distinction when presented with synonyms.
>
and remember our earlier discussion of vase ("vace", [veys]) vs. vase
("vahz", [vaz]), with the latter necessarily worth at least $500.
Someone else mentioned the cheaper "cleMATis" (<$10) vs. the more
expensive "CLEMatis" (>$10).    Bolingeritis strikes again!

Larry