Illigle Iggles; big lig

[Damien Hall]

Various people have said:

">>I knew the laxing occurred before /l/ and /g/, but I didn't realize
>>it's only before /g/ followed by /l/.  That makes more sense.
>
>It may be /g/ in general, in fact. I'm sure I've heard "lig" for "league"
>for example. It's hard for me to be sure since not every Pittsburgher does
>this and some only do it sometimes, and also since I've stopped noticing it
>after a few years here.

Well, I remember that onetime Pittsburgh Pirate Ralph Kiner, when he was a
Mets commentator, always said things like, "He lids the lig in RBIs" or
"He's the lig lidder" (league leader). Now that I check his bio, I see he
was born in New Mexico and spent his formative years in Alhambra,
California. Kiner didn't start playing in Pittsburgh till he was 23. But
he spent 8 years there, so maybe that was long enough for him to take on
Pittsburgh features."

It may well be before /g/ in general.  Of course there are the Philadelphia
Iggles, as has been pointed out (and the Eagle statue in the Wanamaker Building
here in Philadelphia is also affectionately known as the Iggle, even by people
who don't have the laxing).  The laxing is actually such a Philadelphia
shibboleth that William Labov has incorporated it into one of the minimal-pairs
tests that he has written to elicit salient Philadelphia vowel shifts / mergers:
 people are asked to say out loud 'big' and 'league', and then say whether or
not they rhyme.  For a lot of people, particularly older ones, they do.

Interestingly, though, the same laxing is tested when people are asked to
pronounce 'nearer'-'mirror' and say whether or not they rhyme, and when they
are asked to pronounce 'spirit'-'spear it' and say whether or not they sound
the same.  For many people, old and young alike, 'nearer' and 'mirror' *do*
rhyme, and the same people say that 'spirit' and 'spear it' are only
differentiated by the possible pause between the words in the second pair.  So
that adds the environment before /r/ to the list of places where this laxing
can occur.

(Other pairs in the test are 'moor'-'more', 'ferry'-furry', 'tour'-'tore' and
similar.)

So, so far we have /i/ -> /I/ possible before /g/, /l/, /gl/ and /r/.  One
example I have heard, combining some of them, is 'illegal' [IlIgl].  The laxing
of the second [I] may confirm the Philadelphia laxing environments above - I
think so - but on the other hand(s) it may be perseverance from the lax first
/I/ (I'm not aware that anyone from here has the first /I/ as tense [i], or it
may be a lexical effect where speakers perceive the /igl/ in 'illegal' as 'the
same' as the /igl/ in 'Eagle', and so do the same to it.  It's difficult to
know how you could sort that one out.

Damien Hall
University of Pennsylvania