contrastive stress on "an"

[Charles Doyle]

It does not sound odd to me: "I don't want a(n) apple, I want THUH apple." I'm just not sure whether (or with what frequency) I would say that.

Back in the remote days when I was Archibald Hill's student, we represented stressed schwas with the upside-down "V" things (which I don't know how to write or name). I haven't seen those in a while.

--Charlie
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---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2007 14:24:34 -0500
>From: "Dennis R. Preston" <preston at MSU.EDU>
>
>
>Stressed schwa would be odd I think. I bet it's /Diy/.
>
>dInIs
>
>>
>>And, in a parallel way, for dialects (like mine) with invariant [D@] for "the," even before vowel-initial words, I wonder is we might adopt the pronunciation [Di] for emphasis?  "I want th' apple" vs. "I don't want a(n) apple, I want THE apple."
>>
>>--Charlie
>>_____________________________________________________________
>>
>>---- Original message ----
>>>Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2007 11:25:38 -0500
>>>From: "Dennis R. Preston" <preston at MSU.EDU>
>>>
>>>
>>>Larry,
>>>
>>>Both /ey/ and /aen/ sound good to me; I think the contrastive stress does away with the /n/ requirement in the first (and I don't have the /n/ in colloquial usage anyhow). Fun variationist project: Does contrastive stress on "an" more often realize itself as /ey/ for speakers who don't have the nasal?
>>>
>>>dInIs

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