A nice Southernism . . .

[ronbutters at AOL.COM]

Good data, different rule for CLOTHES and.FIFTH.  Though the rule for Charlie's data creates consonant cluster simplification, it is not the Consonant Cluster Simplification Rule, which would create fif' clothe' and was' (plural wasses).
When C1 and C2 are like-voiced fricatives, some people have a
Variable that may delete C1. People for whom the CCS rule is very weak may nonetheless have this first-fricative deletion rule.

------Original Message------
From: Charles Doyle
Sender: ADS-L
To: ADS-L
ReplyTo: ADS-L
Sent: Sep 4, 2008 7:49 AM
Subject: Re: [ADS-L] A nice Southernism . . .

Consonant cluster "simplification":

I find myself quite unable to pronounce the second "-f-" in the word "fifth" or the "-th-" in "clothes."  How "wasp" will come out out of my mouth on a given occasion is unpredictable--especially the plural of the word.

As Ron said, the rule isn't SIMPLE; it's not an "anytime" matter!

--Charlie

_____________________________________________________________


---- Original message ----
>Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2008 11:16:54 +0800
>From: LanDi Liu <strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM>
>Subject: Re: A nice Southernism . . .

>On Thu, Sep 4, 2008 at 12:11 AM,  <ronbutters at aol.com> wrote:

>> However, CONSONANT CLUSTER is a well known term in linguistics. And FINAL CONSONANT CLUSTER SIMPLIFICATION is the usual term employed to name the rule that describes the phenomenon in English whereby a word-final consonant is variably deleted iff it is alike in voicing with the consonant that immediately precedes it (i.e., both must be either voiced or not voiced) .

>
>You're saying that anytime you have this situation at the end of a word:
>
>{unvoiced consonant} + {unvoiced consonant}
>
>or
>
>{voiced consonant} + {voiced consonant}
>
>that the second consonant can be deleted?
>
>So (according to your rule) for the word "wasp", you can just say
>[was]?  And for "bulb", you can just say [b^l]?
>
>I'm pretty sure I've never heard anybody in any English dialect say
>either of those, or anything similar.  The final consonant cluster
>reduction rule that I'm aware of only affects [t] and [d], and it
>doesn't have much to do with voicing, but rather what kinds of
>consonants are next to the [t] or [d] in question.  It's not simple
>enough to make a one-sentence rule about; and the processes involved
>form a "process continuum" that ranges from speaking in citation forms
>to slurred and unintelligible speech.
>
>--
>Randy Alexander
>Jilin City, China
>My Manchu studies blog:
>http://www.bjshengr.com/manchu
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


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