~Feenlend

[Mark Mandel]

Ditto, NYC. My /I/ is slightly higher before /N/ than before /n/ (e.g. in
"sing" than in "sin"), but not like /i/ ("seen") in height (not to mention
the length and diphthongization of /i/).

m a m

On Feb 18, 2008 7:51 PM, Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at wmich.edu> wrote:

> Possibly.  That you get in a number of dialects in the US, as well as
> conservative Scots/Northumbrian ones, which distinguish the present
> participle [-^n/-n] from the gerund [-in].  This distinction  has
> been traced to Appalachia, but I wasn't aware of other areas in the
> US having it.
>
> But in monosyllables--my Kalamazoo students might have a little bit
> of raising (they raise /aeN/ sequences to /eN/, after all), but
> nothing like [iN].  And as far as Tom's claim about the UK--Scots
> alone, and only in certain words where the preceding consonant is
> high, like velars--you can get "keeng, weeng" but not "seeng";
> actually,I think it's pretty much of a lexically-conditioned rule
> nowadays.  English dialects that have something like [i] + /N/
> generally are the ones with pretty /i/-like realizations of pin etc.
> anyway, as you might get in Birmingham.  But it's certainly not
> General British.  Once again, Tom's ear lets him down.  And he's from
> Connecticut too, and in the northeast, I hear NO allophonic differences.
>
> Paul Johnston
>
>

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