For words ending in "-ity" is it ~t or ~d

[Tom Zurinskas]

Thanks Michael,

Close but no cigar, in my opinion.  In the word "body', going from a
stressed "ah" to a "d" starting an unstressed syllable does get the tongue a
little flappy, but it's not the flap of Spanish "r" in my opinion, and going
from other stressed vowels (buddy, steady) does not make the tongue flap.

I can say "body" with a tongue flap and it sounds different and is
recognizably different to me (shorter, tongue turned back).  I could send a
sound file but am away from my PC. Sound files are great here.

Spanish has the multiple r-flap that is not in English.  As an English
speaking native it took me a while to do that flap.  The single r-flap needs
the same movement.  This is not in the English phoneme set.  Possibley
coming from Spanish to English, the tongue may pronounce the "d" in "body"
with a flap just because it's trained and does it easily.  Not so easy for
English adepts in my opinion.


Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
See truespel.com - and the 4  truespel books plus "Occasional Poems" at
authorhouse.com.





>From: Michael H Covarrubias <mcovarru at PURDUE.EDU>
>Reply-To: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>Subject: Re: For words ending in "-ity" is it ~t or ~d
>Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2007 17:12:49 -0400
>
>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Michael H Covarrubias <mcovarru at PURDUE.EDU>
>Subject:      Re: For words ending in "-ity" is it ~t or ~d
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Tom Zurinskas:
> >
> > The sounds I hear for "ity" are ~d
> > replacing ~t sounds, not r-flaps.
> >
> > But I've never heard it in English.
> > Perhaps you could point out some
> > words we could hear it in m-w.com.
> >
>
>Listen to the pronunciation of "body" and "bodacious." The 2nd consonant in
>"body" is articulated as a flap. In "bodacious" the 2nd consonant is a [d].
>This
>is expected because it occurs pre-stress.
>
>They are not the same phone.
>
>Michael
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
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