"another thing coming"

[Paul A Johnston, Jr.]

Isn't it also the case that Desi Arnaz's Cuban dialect of Spanish, and other Caribbean varieties, alternate /n/ and /N/ in final position for Standard Spanish /n/ (I believe in both stressed and unstressed final syllables)?  That might be relevant here.

Yours,
Paul Johnston

----- Original Message -----
From: "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
Date: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 4:34 pm
Subject: Re: "another thing coming"

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "another thing coming"
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> ------------
>
> On May 28, 2008, at 12:36 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>
> > At 11:03 AM -0700 5/28/08, Brenda Lester wrote:
> >> FWIW: Remember Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnez) (I LOVE LUCY)
> >>  used to say "thin" for thing?  We southerners say
> >> "nothin'."
> >>
> >
> >
> > But when?  Do you say "That's another thin"?
>
> brenda: an alveolar (rather than velar) variant for -ing is generally
> available in most parts of the english-speaking world for two sets of
> words:
>
> (a) the -ing form ("present participle", "gerund participle", etc.;
> there are many alternative labels) of verbs;
>
> and (b) compound indefinite pronouns ending in unaccented "thing":
> "nothing", "something", and for those speakers who can have unaccented
> (rather than secondarily accented) "thing" in "anything" and
> "everything" (i don't have it), one or both of these.
>
> the frequency of the alveolar variant varies from social group to
> social group, region to region, person to person, and context to
> context in very complex ways (which have been extensively studied),
> and there's a rich body of folk belief about who uses the alveolar
> variant and on what occasions.  but the alveolar variant itself is
> just a feature of general colloquial english, and is found all over
> the U.S. and Canada, the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, South Africa,
> etc.
>
> larry's point was that an alveolar variant for words in (a) and
> (b) is
> not at all surprising, but that such a variant for words outside of
> (a) and (b) is surprising.  not unknown, but certainly worth noting.
> i've occasionally heard things like "Wyomin'" (especially from people
> from the region), and of course alveolar variants are heard in the
> speech of non-native speakers, when their native language lacks
> word-
> final velar nasals, and possibly sometimes also (i don't know the
> literature) as a substratum feature for native speakers, when earlier
> generations had alveolar versions as part of their foreign accent.
>
> arnold
>
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