[hw-] v. [w]

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 05:19 PM 8/1/2007, you wrote:
>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
>Subject:      Re: [hw-] v. [w]
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>On 8/1/07, Beverly Flanigan <flanigan at ohio.edu> wrote:
> >
> > [David A. Daniel wrote:]
> > >
> > > [Scott LaFaive wrote:]
> > >
> > > >I don't have an [h] anywhere near my [w]'s (Wisconsin dialect), so I
> don't
> > > >even know what this sounds like. Any good sound files for this?
> > >
> > >Bob Dylan, Lay Lady Lay. He could blow out a candle with his "...stay with
> > >your man a hhhhhhhwile"
> >
> > As Peter Trudgill pointed out in a 1983 paper ("Acts of Conflicting
> > Identity"), Dylan tried to use a Midland/Appalachian accent in his early
> > songs, often with hypercorrection.  Hence "a while" was [e hwail] (or maybe
> > even [e hwal]?) and "the times they are [e tSendZiN]."  As a Minnesotan,
> > Dylan would have never used [hw] in his own persona, and I wonder if he
> > didn't drop it in his later songs too?
>
>"Lay Lady Lay" wasn't that early of a song in the Dylan oeuvre -- it's from
>1969, off the "Nashville Skyline" album (his 9th album in 8 years). I don't
>recall what Trudgill has to say on the matter, but my sense is that Dylan
>didn't lose his singing accent in the way that the Beatles and the Stones
>eventually gave up on Americanized phonology as Trudgill describes.
>
>
>--Ben Zimmer
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

Actually, Trudgill only cites one song from Dylan, and it's neither of the
two I cited above; I use those two in class, along with this one from
Trudgill:

You may be an [aembaes at d@]
To England or [@] France
You may [la:k] to gamble
You [ma:t] [la:k] to dance . . . (from _Slow Train Coming_, 1979)

He notes that Dylan, "from Minnesota, in the American Mid-West," has /ai/ =
[ai] and non-prevocalic /r/ in his speech but uses [a:] and r-loss in his
singing style (1983, p. 146).  He fails to note, though, that Dylan used
[ae] in both 'France' and 'dance'--typical of his half-assed attempt at
British English.  But I must admit I really haven't followed him since
about that time.

------------------------------------------------------------
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