coffin pronunciation

Tom Zurinskas truespel at HOTMAIL.COM
Mon Mar 17 00:16:27 UTC 2008 

This clippit is a discussion by me of the sound of "o" in phoneme ~or (the sound of the vowel "o" as influenced by following phoneme ~r in tradstreeng "or").
  The sound is between ~oe and ~au so truespel labels it ~or.

Press play button twice to hear.

http://www.qlipmedia.com/wqb/index.php?discid=bed19b83

Also, note that truespel is English based.  Would the word "more" look better to English readers as ~maur rather than ~mor?  And if the "awe-droppers" see the tradstreeng "au" would they tend to substitute "ah"?  Possibly.


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

>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Paul Johnston
> Subject: Re: coffin pronunciation
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Tom,
> if it's a phoneme, you should have a minimal pair, or some kind of
> contrast with other nearby vowels in the SAME PHONETIC ENVIRONMENT.
> If this is a rhotic accent you're describing (and your other postings
> tell me that), and your sound in this set of words occurs only
> before /r/, then it's an allophone, because, according to you, your
> "awe" (open o) and "oh" (closed o) don't occur before /r/. And a lot
> of dialects--that of my Michigan students, for one--have phonetic
> values similar to what you describe (more true for their vowel in
> there, air, which does seem to be between [E] and [e], than their
> ~or, which sounds like a plain old open o to me; it still isn't their
> vowel in awe, law, caught, which is turned a or something similar).
> The question is: what are these sounds allophones of and that is
> tricky. My students PERCEIVE these vowels as being [o e], even if
> they're as much as one step lower. But I perceive my ~or--and I'm
> rhotic too--as being an allophone of my vowel in caught, not in coat,
> even though it may be no higher than my students' sound. and yet, my
> ~air, I perceive as part of the /e/ phoneme too (though I have Mary
> and merry as identical). This is a classic case of phonemic
> neutralization in either dialect, and some old-fashioned phonological
> theories would postulate something called an archiphoneme here
> (saying, in effect, it's not an /O/ and it's not an /o/, it's both at
> the same time). In a pinch, I'd probably assign on the basis of
> native speaker perception, if there was no patterning in the system
> suggesting otherwise. But it's not a phoneme in its own right in
> rhotic dialects, anyhow.
>
> Paul Johnston
>
> On Mar 15, 2008, at 4:46 PM, Tom Zurinskas wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: Tom Zurinskas
>> Subject: Re: coffin pronunciation
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ---------
>>
>> My take is that the "o" in "forest" and "orange" is a separate
>> phoneme ~or (as influenced by "r") from "awe" , not an allophone.
>> The sound is between "awe" and "oh". In fact for "r-droppers" the
>> word "more" can be anywhere from "moe" to "maw", depending on
>> accent. But under the influence of "r" the "o" gets a different
>> value, as in floor, more, boar, order. The same with ~er and ~air.
>>
>> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
>> See truespel.com - and the 4 truespel books plus "Occasional Poems"
>> at authorhouse.com.
>>
>>
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>> -----------------------
>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>> Poster: Laurence Horn
>>> Subject: Re: coffin pronunciation
>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> ----------
>>>
>>> At 7:14 PM +0000 3/15/08, Tom Zurinskas wrote:
>>>> Actually it's the reverse.
>>>> See Bert Vaux's American Dialect study at
>>>> http://www4.uwm.edu//FLL/linguistics/dialect/maps.html
>>>> It has maps of dialect areas. Number 28 is the caught/cot question.
>>>> It shows western prevalence for pronouncing cot/caught the same.
>>>
>>>
>>> Actually, that's not quite right. Two different issues are involved
>>> here, which you're treating as the same issue. It's long been
>>> recognized that the cot/caught merger is more likely to appear in
>>> western U.S. English than in the eastern states. But if you've been
>>> reading this thread, you'll have seen that a number of the
>>> northeastern respondents are claiming that (i) they do make the
>>> distinction in environments like "caught" vs. "cot" (open-o vs. /a/
>>> respectively) but (ii) they pronounce "coffin" with the open-o. I'm
>>> in that group, along with several others who wrote in; in fact, I
>>> probably exhibit considerable variation in my pronunciation of
>>> "coffin", as well as in rhotic environments ("forest", "orange"), as
>>> also discussed here in the past. This doesn't mean I merge "caught"
>>> and "cot" (or "wrought" and "rot"), though.
>>>
>>> LH
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> The data show that 61% of Americans pronounce cot/caught
>>>> differently. How the merger is getting so much play in the media is
>>>> baffling to me. Must be a westernbroadcast export. It is not a
>>>> good thing. It needlessly creates homonyms which interfere with
>>>> clearest communications. I hope no one is teaching that dropping
>>>> "awe" for "ah" is a good thing.
>>>>
>>>> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
>>>> See truespel.com - and the 4 truespel books plus "Occasional Poems"
>>>> at authorhouse.com.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>>> -----------------------
>>>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>>>> Poster: Rowan McMullin
>>>>> Subject: Re: coffin pronunciation
>>>>>
>>>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> ------------
>>>>>
>>>>> In the midwest, most of the people I've heard (who make a
>>>>> distinction, that
>>>>> is, between /a/ and open-o) still pronounce "coffin" with an
>>>>> open-o. To me,
>>>>> pronouncing it with an /a/ sounds like an east-coast thing.
>>>>>
>>>>> -Rowan
>>>>>
>>>>> On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 10:27 PM, Tom Zurinskas
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>>>> -----------------------
>>>>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>>>>> Poster: Tom Zurinskas
>>>>>> Subject: Re: coffin pronunciation
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>> -------------
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Is that your usual, Scot? Beating people. How old are you?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I would think that the pronunciation of the vowel in words with
>>>>>> "off" in
>>>>>> it as "ah" is a recent phonomenon. In fact if "on" and "off"
>>>>>> have the same
>>>>>> "ah" sound, it could be confusing if the second phoneme is said
>>>>>> softly or
>>>>>> drops out. "Turn it ah..." could be interpreted either way.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
>>>>>> See truespel.com - and the 4 truespel books plus "Occasional
>>>>>> Poems" at
>>>>>> authorhouse.com.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>>>> -----------------------
>>>>>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>>>>>> Poster: Scot LaFaive
>>>>>>> Subject: Re: coffin pronunciation
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>> -------------
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> "Coffee" has always been ~kaufee. But not anymore. The "awe-
>>>>>>>> droppers"
>>>>>>>> refuse to say the sound ~au, and are dropping it out of the
>>>>>>>> American
>>>>>>> English>foenubet. Not good.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> A friend of mine says [kah-fi] for "coffee." Shall I beat him
>>>>>> unmercifully
>>>>>>> until he submits to the proper pronunciation? The bastard does
>>>>>>> *refuse*
>>>>>> to
>>>>>>> say [kaw-fi].
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Scot
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 9:52 PM, Tom Zurinskas wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>>>>>> -----------------------
>>>>>>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>>>>>>> Poster: Tom Zurinskas
>>>>>>>> Subject: Re: coffin pronunciation
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>> -------------
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> It's an "open o" or "backward c" or whatever other visual
>>>>>>>> description
>>>>>> you
>>>>>>>> want to give the IPA symbol for the vowel sound "awe" (which in
>>>>>> truespel is
>>>>>>>> ~au). So it's ~kaufin. Always has been. The word "off" has
>>>>>>>> always been
>>>>>>>> ~auf. "Coffee" has always been ~kaufee. But not anymore. The
>>>>>>>> "awe-droppers" refuse to say the sound ~au, and are dropping
>>>>>>>> it out of
>>>>>> the
>>>>>>>> American English foenubet. Not good.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Data show that American folks still prefer ~au at least for
>>>>>>>> "caught"
>>>>>>>> instead of pronouncing it "cot". But many newscaster in FL are
>>>>>> replacing
>>>>>>>> "awe" with "ah". In fact some say "cloddy" instead of "cloudy".
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
>>>>>>>> See truespel.com - and the 4 truespel books plus "Occasional
>>>>>>>> Poems" at
>>>>>>>> authorhouse.com.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>>>>>> -----------------------
>>>>>>>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>>>>>>>> Poster: Matthew Gordon
>>>>>>>>> Subject: coffin pronunciation
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>> -------------
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I was listening to a podcast featuring 2 thirty-something
>>>>>>>>> New Yorkers.
>>>>>>>> One
>>>>>>>>> of them pronounced 'coffin' with an open-o, and the other
>>>>>>>>> ridiculed
>>>>>> him,
>>>>>>>>> saying something about how it's not 'coughin'.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> My question for those of you who maintain the distinction
>>>>>>>>> between /a/
>>>>>>>> and
>>>>>>>>> open-o: Do you all have /a/ for 'coffin'? I'm wondering
>>>>>>>>> whether this
>>>>>> is
>>>>>>>>> another example of a word that varies in its phonemic
>>>>>>>>> assignment.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>>>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>
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