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

Tue Jun 19 01:58:32 UTC 2007

Thanks Paul,

Dictionaries say "singer" is different than "finger" regarding "ng".  That's
not a big enough deal to really be necessarily another phoneme.  The big
problem here is misrepresentation of the stressed vowel as short i.
Nowadays, it's a long e ~ee as can clearly be heard on m-w.com.  Don't you
get m-w.com?

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

>From: Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at WMICH.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: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 14:59:14 -0400
>
>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at WMICH.EDU>
>Subject:      Re: For words ending in "-ity" is it ~t or ~d
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Allophones of /n/ and /g/?  Eng has never been, even historically, an
>allophone of /g/ in English--in Classical Greek, yes, but not
>English.  It was once an allophone of /n/, appearing before velars,
>and still is in parts of the English West Midlands, where it never
>occurs without a /g/ or /k/ after it.  In America, except for certain
>"Longg Islanders"--and even they don't say /sINgz/ for "sings"--it's
>a phoneme:  cf. thin/thing, sin/sing contrasts.  I'm sure m-w.com
>agrees.
>
>Paul Johnston
>On Jun 18, 2007, at 8:59 AM, Tom Zurinskas wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: For words ending in "-ity" is it ~t or ~d
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > ---------
> >
> > Thanks James,
> >
> > I agree with what you say.  Citation speech versus normal speech-
> > which is
> > best to represent in a dictionary?  Funny thing is that m-w.com
> > while going
> > the great extra step in providing voice files of every word (again a
> > marvelous resource) illustrates the problem.
> >
> > In my dictionary, which is the VOA dictionary plus truespel for
> > pronunciation, I show both.
> >
> > Truespel is just a simple notation.  If it sounds like a "k" it
> > goes in the
> > k-bin.  I even treat "ng" as being not a separate phoneme, but
> > allophones of
> > "n" and "g".
> >
> > Truespel notation is OK for dictionaries, but even at this level I
> > find
> > pronunciation may have changed and current notation not kept up in
> > current
> > dictionaries.  Perhaps current dictionaries want to merely keep
> > citation
> > spelling and not bother with new updates.  Consistency regardless of
> > reality?
> >
> > 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: Sun, 17 Jun 2007 23:00:07 -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
> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> >> ----------
> >>
> >>> 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.
> >>
> >> Well, there seems to have been a certain level of dispute over
> >> whether that sound is a tap (or flap) or a solid [d]... But if you're
> >> designing a new spelling system to reflect the way things are really
> >> said, you'll want to reflect the way thing sare said when they're
> >> said carefully, I presume. All sorts of things change when people
> >> speak casually. In English, both /t/ and /d/ have a tap as an
> >> allophone, but of course it's not a separate phoneme. Now, if you say
> >> "I see disparity in this parody," and someone else says "What? I
> >> can't hear you," you'll probably say [dIspErIti] with a clear, crisp
> >> [t] and [pEr at di] with a definite d, even though you had a moment
> >> before most likely said them both with the same sequence of sounds
> >> starting at [p]. Naturally, this more careful form is also what the
> >> dictionaries tend to reflect.
> >>
> >> When you hear people saying the -ity endings with the sound in
> >> question, you're hearing the relaxed way of saying it, but how do you
> >> propose to get the target articulation, the one that they have in
> >> mind and that guides their  pronunciation but that they seldom
> >> articulate in full detail? I know that the relaxed form influences
> >> understanding of the citation form; I've certainly seen the spelling
> >> "celebrady" for "celebrity." But among well-educated users, aware of
> >> the spelling etc., the target articulation, the one that they would
> >> shout or say to someone hard of hearing or say in the most formal way
> >> possible, will have a [t]. And will yet be a tap or flap most of the
> >> rest of the time.
> >>
> >>>  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.
> >>
> >> Well, that "anyone" includes thousands of phoneticians, I reckon.
> >> "Murder" is normally said with a flap by many, perhaps most,
> >> Americans and Canadians. You can say that it isn't, but you're up
> >> against a lot of experts who disagree with you. It's not a motion
> >> that requires a lingual detour when we use it; the entire reason for
> >> its use is that it takes less effort. But that flap is not a separate
> >> phoneme, certainly; it's an allophone, in this case of /t/, in other
> >> cases of /d/ and even at times /n/ (though nasalized in that case).
> >> We have no shortage of allophone that not only aren't in the phoneme
> >> sent but that some people will even think they can't say -- the
> >> semivowel that /l/ usually turns into when Albertans say "Calgary,"
> >> for instance.
> >>
> >>> 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.
> >>
> >> Yes, I think we're in agreement on that much. Dictionaries aren't
> >> really detailed phonetic expositions. They're references with a
> >> certain purpose in mind, and exact description of casual speech isn't
> >> it.
> >>
> >> James Harbeck.
> >>
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