sammich in Iowa and France

[Dennis R. Preston]

Ron,

You sure (in fast speech) you ain't got the monosyllable (with an
admittedly long /ae/?

dInIs


>"sa'wich" is, I'm sure, my normal, informal pronunciation (with nasalization
>of the firfst vowel, of course). This strikes me as the "most informal stage,"
>with the /nd/ pronunciation as the most formal and the /nw/ pronunciation the
>"nearly" least "formal." The pronuncation with the velar nasal sounds alien
>to me (not that David Barnhart is an alien in any sense except that he is
>apparently not a member of my sub-dialect clan with respect to this important
>word."
>
>The pronunciation with the velar nasal sounds like something that a French
>vampire would delight in (to continue with the silly puns).
>
>In a message dated 1/21/05 9:02:40 AM, preston at MSU.EDU writes:
>
>
>>  (By the way, the next, nearly most informal stage, for good speakers
>>  like me is  a loss of the nasal altogether, excepting nasalization of
>>  the vowel, of course but still with a /w/. ["Still with a /w/!" An
>>  unfortunate choice of words today, though I guess it would have been
>>  worse yesterday.] Of course, you can get here from 'sangwich' as
>>  well. Most informally, I can realize this item as a monosyllable,
>>  with loss of /w/ - /s [+nasal ae:] ch/.)
>>


--
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