No subject

[Dennis R. Preston]

I like the stress argument. So, all things being equalo, you might
not do /h/ before vowel "earlier" that /h/ before /j/ since the /hy/
clusters are more likely to be more heavily stressed, right?

dInIs



>dInIs,
>
>"You mean to say you would drop /h/ prevocalically BEFORE you would
>drop in pre /y/? I find this counterintuitive."
>
>Yes, I think so.  But it's difficult for me to tell from my own dialect,
>obviously.  I think the reason for that might be that most of the
>frames that I
>can think of off the top of my head to say to myself and listen to
>have the /h/
>preceded by an /s/:
>
>"It's here"
>
>etc.  That creates the difficulty of not knowing whether any aspiration that's
>present is the /h/ of 'here' or a reduction of the /s/.  But I really do think
>I say "'ere" (in particular) quite often.
>
>If it's counterintuitive that I should drop the prevocalic /h/ but not the
>pre-/y/ one, maybe it has something to do with salience?  Maybe,
>subconsciously, I (and any others who might have this feature in common with
>me, I suppose) perceive h-dropping in 'huge' much more readily than we do in
>words that have the /h/ followed by a vowel?  Maybe that has to do with the
>fact that
>
>'huge' - /h/ = /hyuwdj/ - /h/ = /yuwdj/
>
>and /yu/ is a relatively uncommon onset in English compared to /?V/ which you
>get in
>
>'here' - /h/ = /hI:/ or /hi@/ - /h/ = /(?)I:/ or /(?)i@/ (for me!)
>
>I don't know the stats for that.
>
>On the other hand, Michael Friesner points out that it may be more
>likely to be
>a stress effect, since 'huge' is stressed for effect the majority of the time.
>He pointed out to me that I couldn't delete the /h/ in
>
>It's my HOUSE
>/Its may 'haws/
>
>but I could in
>
>It's MY house
>/Its 'ma yaws/
>
>So, yes, I think I *do* drop /h/ prevocalically before I'll do it pre-/y/, and
>maybe it's a stress effect, with a possible contribution from frequency as
>well.  Does that make sense?
>
>Damien Hall
>University of Pennsylvania


--
Dennis R. Preston
University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics
Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages
A-740 Wells Hall
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824
Phone: (517) 432-3099
Fax: (517) 432-2736
preston at msu.edu