Phonemic vowel length

[David Sutcliffe]

Re:phonemic length,  David Bergdahl wrote
I have phonemic length in only one pair: bomb/balm~ bam/ba:m

That's interesting: a length distinction not lost because it distinguishes between two words that would fall together otherwise. Very hard to find more pairs like this - ie Somme v psalm,   oms v. alms!  Peter Patrick tells me in New York the vowels of God and guard are qualitatively different any way.

David

On 10/4/06, David Sutcliffe <david.sutcliffe at upf.edu> wrote:
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: David Sutcliffe <david.sutcliffe at UPF.EDU>
> Subject: Phonemic vowel length
>
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>
> 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
>

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