cross-post from Linguist List

[Wilson Gray]

On Jul 15, 2005, at 1:06 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Fwd: cross-post from Linguist List
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> as usual, responses should go to the poster, Mr. Kun, as well as our
> list; I thought the claims reported below would be of interest to
> some of us.  I'm not sure on the first whether the claim is that some
> weird Australian speakers differentiate "libel" and "Bible", which
> strikes me as implausible, or (contrary to the description below)
> that they don't rhyme the two, which seems like a more plausible
> claim (as plausible as the the two below it, anyway).
>
> Larry
>
> --- begin forwarded text
>
> LINGUIST List: Vol-16-2163. Fri Jul 15 2005. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.
>
> Subject: 16.2163, Qs: Irish Language Speakers; Phonemic Distictions
>
> Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2005 12:13:06
> From: Tom Kun < tomkun83 at hotmail.com >
> Subject: Phonemic Distictions in English
>
> 1. Some people have been arguing on the Antimoon forum
> (http://www.antimoon.com/forum) about whether there might be a
> ''libel-bible'' split going on in Australia.  The whole mess started
> when
> someone posted a huge minimal pair survey on the UniLang forum, and
> one of
> the pairs was ''libel-bible.''  Three Australians answered that they
> pronounced them differently.  Someone then asked a question on the
> Antimoon
> forum about it, posting a link to the UniLang survey.  The Antimooners
> wrote it all off as ''troll activity.''  So is there any real split
> going on?
>
> 2. Speaking of Australia, some Australians I've met on forums such as
> the
> ones mentioned above claim a slight distinction between ''bred'' and
> ''bread.''  For them the vowel in ''bread'' is slightly longer.  Anyone
> know anything more?
>
> 3. I have a friend who was born in Alaska, grew up in Arizona and
> Florida,
> and most recently has lived in North Carolina.  She pronounces
> ''there''
> and ''they're'' as [De:r] but ''their'' as [D3:r].  And yes, she is
> aware
> of it and thinks we're all strange for pronouncing all three the same.
>  I
> have never heard of any such phenomenon, is it a characteristic of
> some region?
>
>

I have nothing to say WRT (1) and (2), but, WRT (3), your friend is
clearly mistaken. <I'm just joking, of course. "Clearly mistaken" is
not my serious opinion of your friend's idiolect. But I am serious in
what follows..> It's "there" and "their" that fall together as [D3:r]
and "they're" that's distinct as [De:r]. I'm black, born in r-less East
Texas, reared in r-ful St, Louis (it has or, at one time, had, a
dialect distinct from that of the rest of Missouri) and finished off
the construction of my idiolect in r-ful California, both Northern -
Sacramento/Davis - and Southern - Los Angeles.

-Wilson Gray

> Linguistic Field(s): Phonology
>                       Sociolinguistics
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> LINGUIST List: Vol-16-2163
>
>
>
> --- end forwarded text
>