Phonemic vowel length

[Jonathan Lighter]

Me too, but I wouldn't have thought of it without reading your message.

  Future Inglish Alert:
   I was coincidentally just listening to another WWII show on The History Channel; the American-sounding narrator regularly pronounced "bomber" with such a prolonged
   / a: / that I almost - but not quite - heard a following dark  L.

  Watch for this to develop fully in the next century !

  JL

  David Bergdahl <dlbrgdhl at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: David Bergdahl
Subject: Re: Phonemic vowel length
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have phonemic length in only one pair: bomb/balm~ bam/ba:m

On 10/4/06, David Sutcliffe wrote:
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: David Sutcliffe
> Subject: Phonemic vowel length
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Can someone help me out on phonemic length in North American English vowel
> systems.
> Specifically, to what extent is the traditional difference in phonemic
> length in vowels still extant in US dialects? It's very clearly there in the
> Ex slave AAE speakers (I've listened to these extensively) and may be now
> replaced by the tense lax distinction in white varieties, at least in the
> northern cities (?)
>
> In any case, physical length may be another distinction that once lost is
> difficult to recover. I still have it in my speech (SE England), at least
> enough to distinguish length in others, but the distinction may be on the
> way out in southern England too.
>
> David Sutcliffe
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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



---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
 Get on board. You're invited to try the new Yahoo! Mail.

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