ah/ awe

[David Bowie]

From:    Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at WMICH.EDU>

<snip>

> (2)  It's not a matter of WANT to.  In the cases where something is
> really easier to say (and I'd put knight > night  and car > cah here,
> but not awe . ah--they're both equally easy to say)--it;s a matter of
> keeping speech flow fluent, so we don't talk like old-time computers,
> and talk at a normal rate of speech, like our parents, peers, and
> every native speaker we hear.

Actually, i'd say that even something like [kn]ight>[n]ight isn't
necessarily an instance of something being "really easier to say". I
mean, i have near-native (though rusty, by now) fluency in German, and
for me, pronouncing the initial consonant clusters in words like Knecht
and Gnade is simply something you do, and dropping the stops wouldn't
make it any easier, it'd just make it weird.

Appeals to ease of production always seem to me to boil down to "*I*
find it easier to say this way!", not "It's actually easier to say this
way."

And even if something *is* easier to produce a certain way, it seems to
me that you're almost certainly giving up ease of perception as a tradeoff.

Relatedly, though off the topic of the thread: I'm equally bothered by
appeals to 'naturalness" to explain historical change.

<snip>

--
David Bowie                               University of Central Florida
     Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the
     house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is
     chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed.

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