Probably too late, now

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On 9/29/07, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> At 4:41 PM -0400 9/29/07, Wilson Gray wrote:
> >Well, until someone comes up with a phonological analysis of English
> >that can account for the occurrence of [-rkt-],
>
> Maybe it has something to do with the stress pattern.  I have no
> trouble with, say, "Mark Twain" or even "Arcturus", but I've never
> pronounced the /k/ in "Arctic", even though if I had to guess, I'd
> have guessed it was there historically.

It's not just anticipatory/regressive dissimilation?


--Ben Zimmer

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