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

[Tom Zurinskas]

Thanks James,

In re-writing English phonetically as I've done with truespel, to avoid
using special symbols, I had to write out all schwas.  I had no help in
determining the sounds of schwas but my own ears and I've had to practice
listening and trust them. The American Heritage Talking Dictionary provided
voiced words to go by, as did m-w.com.  The quest was to make a simple
phonetic spelling of English using regular keyboard letters. This took two
years.

I found differences between the sounds in spoken words and the phonetic
spellings. No one here seems to dispute the fact that "ity" is pronounced
rather with a d-like sound as I've pointed out.  There is no other way to
simply notate that sound other than with a "d".  English dictionaries do not
have a symbol for an r flap or tap.  It does not exist in Engilsh and I find
it strange that anyone would say that it's a flap when native tongue
Americans don't go through the tongue motions to make a flap in their normal
phoneme set.

A r-flap is recognizable in many languages.  In truespel book one I use
travlang.com to hear 13 other languages to compare them to Enlglish using
truespel.  The r-flap is the most prevalent non-English phoneme.  I spell it
~q.  (The k-flap is the next common and it's spelled ~x to use the two
unneeded letters of the alphabet for spelling English phonemes).

A tap, I suppose, is just a short d.  No doubt many sounds have allophones
(slightly different versions of the same sound usually usually due to
interference with adjacent phonemes).  But dictionary notation doesn't get
so technical.



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





>From: James Harbeck <jharbeck at SYMPATICO.CA>
>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: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 23:48:48 -0400
>
>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       James Harbeck <jharbeck at SYMPATICO.CA>
>Subject:      Re: For words ending in "-ity" is it ~t or ~d
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Tom, just so you know, on the matter of whether the sound in the
>average North American pronunciation of "matter" or "body" or similar
>words is [d] or a flap or tap, the level of agreement among
>phoneticians that it's a flap or tap is about on the level of the
>agreement among geologists that plate tectonics works. It may be that
>_you_ fully pronounce a [d] on those words, but extensive data show
>that most North American people in relaxed speech produce a flap or
>tap (usually a tap, but in words like "murder" a flap is common), and
>a flap or tap is common for many of these words even in the most
>formal speech. It's why the British pronunciation of "very" is
>sometimes represented for Americans as "veddy" -- because Americans
>would pronounce "veddy", or "Betty" or "heady" or "sweaty", with the
>same sound many British speakers will use for the r in "very".
>
>Certainly the place of articulation is the same and the manner is
>similar, but the [d] in "do" and "don't" is, for most NA speakers,
>more strongly articulated than the tap they say in "madder" and
>"matter". That tap is not an English _phoneme_, it's an English
>_allophone_, and a very common one. The phoneme is /d/ or /t/, but
>the allophone is in these cases the tap (or, in some instances, the
>flap). It would, on the other hand, be wrong to render the citation
>form of "matter" with a /d/ phoneme, because while nearly everyone in
>NA says it with a tap normally, it's understood and agreed that in
>full citation-form pronunciation that consonant would be a [t] and
>not a [d] -- and "matter" carefully pronounced with a full-value [d]
>would be heard as "madder," even if preceded by "what's the".
>
>You're free to disagree with what's written in textbooks, taught in
>classes and published in papers, of course, but I just wanted to make
>sure you knew you weren't actually arguing with just the impressions
>of one or two individuals on this list. You might find some of the
>available literature on the subject of interest, and admitting of
>more detailed material to engage with. Categorical perception can
>make prima facie acoustical impressions unreliable -- most English
>speakers have to be trained to be aware of aspiration, for instance,
>but it's very real. As to your proprioceptive impression, again, you
>may well fully pronounce a [d] in those words, but I and, I suspect,
>many others on this list are quite certain that we produce a tap or
>flap in many of those positions as a matter (not madder) of course.
>
>James Harbeck.
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

_________________________________________________________________
Don’t miss your chance to WIN $10,000 and other great prizes from Microsoft
Office Live http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/aub0540003042mrt/direct/01/

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