ah/ awe

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

In a message dated 10/2/06 7:34:01 PM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes:


> At 9:50 PM +0000 10/2/06, Tom Zurinskas wrote:
> >>From: David Bowie <db.list at PMPKN.NET>
> >>>
> >>From:    Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
> >>>>  From: sagehen <sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM>
> >>
> >>>>  Tom, would you wipe out all dialectal differences in pursuit of this
> >>>>  pronounce-as-spelled campaign?  How would you deal, e.g., with the
> >>>>  diphthongal i with which most northerners pronounce /light, sight,
> >>might/,
> >>>>  &c?
> >>
> >>>  I'm not familiar with that dipthong.  In m-w.com those words above do
> >>not
> >>>  have vowels that are two-phthongs to me.
> >>
> >>The standard pronunciations of the vowels in those words are
> >>diphthongs--in fact, pronouncing those vowels with monophthongs is
> >>rather markedly non-standard. I'm starting to become very curious as to
> >>where your assumptions about the technicalities of English pronunciation
> >>come from.
> >
> >My assumptions are my own.  Are your assumptions someone elses?  Hwo's
> >(Sorry that's "who's", I'm practicing saying "wh" as "hw") are they?.
> 
> The point on "who" is that nobody anywhere pronounces it /hwu/ (or
> /wu/), only as /hu/.  I guess this would be anathema to the alphabet
> principal, though, since it's spelled the same as the other "wh"
> words that come out /hw/ in the relevant dialects.
> 
> >   Words
> >/light, sight, might/ have one phthong as I hear them in m-w.com.
> >
> Um, no.  I just checked and they're all definitely diphthongs (or
> two-phthongs if you insist), with a vowel nucleus beginning with /a/
> and ending with /i/.  For them to be monophthongs, they'd be
> homonymous with "lot", "sot", and "mott" as you've indicated you
> pronounce the latter set of words ("ah", not "awe").  They are indeed
> pronounced that way in some areas of the southern U.S., but not by
> the m-w.com sot...er, site.
> 
> LH
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> 
> 
Larry, don't you have the wrong examples? Since <lot>, <sot> and <mott> are 
spelled (which I guess Mr. Z would have to pronounce as two syllables, by the 
way, according to "the spelling principal") with <o>, he'd have to pronounced 
them with the rounded vowel right? Like <fog> and <god> and <dog>?
The monophthongal or weakened-offglide vowel nucleus in <hide> and <down> in 
the South has an onset that varies between the vowel of <pan> and a slightly 
less open vowel (about the same to my ears as the vowel in Boston r-less <car>
).

Anyway, as anyone who has every listened closely knows, the sounds in 
Standard English <pine>, <pound>, and <spoil> are all dipthongs. For that matter, the 
sound in American English <gate> is a diphthong. Mr. Z is confused, I think, 
because the vowel chart in his dictionary uses single symbols for these 
complex sounds. He doesn't understand the difference between letters and sounds.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org