La

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

Larry,

You miss my point. I am not saying that, in slow and careful speech--in your 
wife's response in isolation--people will not use [a] instead of schwa. All 
that I am maintaining is that, in normal-cadence speech, people reduce the [a] 
to schwa because it is in unstressed position. This is just a normal rule of 
English; there may be some variability in how reduced the vowel gets in an 
individual's speech, but everybody reduces it. If they don't, it sounds 
stilted--like pronouncing the second syllable of "secretary" as [i:] or the second 
syllable of "torrent" as [ent].

Maybe the confusion in this thread arises because some people think that 
other people have an underlying form with schwa rather than [a]. I doubt that this 
is the case, since most Americans are enormously influenced by spelling (and 
many of us, as you noted, are influenced by the foreign pronunciations of of 
the underlying form as [a]). I think that what is happening here is that some 
of the responders to this thread are reporting the underlying form as what they 
"say," while others are reporting what they say in rapid speech as what they 
"say." 

The variablity that you report is, then, just an artifact of the inadequacies 
of the data collection.

In a message dated 2/8/09 8:11:44 PM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes:


> At 8:46 PM -0500 2/8/09, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
> >No insult intended. I am simply stating linguistic fact (see Larry's
> >response). Check any elementary textbook on English phonology.
> >
> >People do not always know what it is that they really do when they talk. I
> >doubt very much that people do find you stilted and artificial, precisely
> >because you do not behave the way you think you do.
> >
> 
> I think we've already found some legitimate variation among New
> Yorkers on this, though.  Besides Joel (a no-schwa guy) and me (a
> double-schwa guy), there's Mark (single schwa, in the "Guardia").  I
> just asked my wife, a non-linguist who grew up in NY and Connecticut,
> what the other airport in New York besides Kennedy is called and she
> said it precisely Mark's way.  When I asked her why, she said "Wasn't
> that his name?"  So one man's stilted and artificial may be another
> man's, or woman's, careful.
> 
> Carelessly,
> LH
> 
> >In a message dated 2/8/09 10:12:33 AM, Berson at ATT.NET writes:
> >
> >
> >>  At 2/8/2009 11:06 AM, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
> >>  >There is no way for me to demonstrate to you that your use of yourself 
> as
> >>  an
> >>  >informant is inaccurate, but what you say flies in the face of 
> thousands of
> >>  >hours of tape-recorded speech of
> >>  >Americans. If you always use [a] in "LaGuardia," you must sound like a 
> very
> >>  >artificial and and stilted speaker to those who hear you.
> >>
> >>  I don't appreciate insults.  As an educated New Yorker, I probably
> >>  distinguish more phonetic variations than you do, and I also know how
> >>  an Italian name was pronounced.
> >>
> >>  >Unless of course you
> >>  >put significant stress on the first syllable (cf. "Lafayette").
> >>  >
> >>  >In a message dated 2/8/09 10:01:18 AM, Berson at att.net writes:
> >>  >
> >>  >
> >>  > > At 2/8/2009 10:48 AM, RonButters at aol.com wrote:
> >>  > > >In most (all?) varieties of American English, [a] reduces to schwa
> >>  > > >when unstressed. The pronunciation of "LaGuardia" with two schwas 
> is
> >>  > > >totally normal in ordinary speech cadence. It is totally 
> unremarkable.
> >>  > >
> >>  > > Not in my normal speech, and I would remark on it (or silently 
> wonder
> >>  > > if the speaker was from out of town).
> >>  > >
> >>  > > Joel
> >>  > >
> >>  > >
> >>  > > >In a message dated 2/8/09 9:25:30 AM, Berson at ATT.NET writes:
> >>  > > >
> >>  > > >
> >>  > > >>At 2/8/2009 10:04 AM, James A. Landau <JJJRLandau at netscape.com> 
> wrote:
> >>  > > >> >I checked the written transcript of Flight 1549 talking with New
> >>  > > >> >York TRACON (Terminal Radar Approach Control).  There were only 
> a
> >>  > > >> >few words with "awe".  One, repeated several times, was 
> "LaGuardia",
> >>  > > >> >which is most often pronounced /l@ 'gwawr dee @/.  This is odd,
> >>  > > >> >since it is an Italian name which Fiorella pronounced I don't 
> know
> >>  > > >> >how but his ancestors pronounced /lah gwahr dee ah/.
> >>  > > >>
> >>  > > >>l@ by analogy with "the"?
> >>  > > >>
> >>  > > >>BTW, it's "Fiorello", not "la".  And while I listened to his 
> reading
> >>  > > >>of the comics, I can't attest to his pronunciation, only mine --
> >>  > > >>which is /lah gwahr dee ah/.  Are recordings of his readings
> >>  > > >>extant?  Possibly he introducing himself.
> >>  > > >>
> >>  > > >>Also BTW, checking on the year of his readings, I notice that the
> >>  > > >>Wikipedia article separates La Guardia.
> >>  > > >>
> >>  > > >>Joel
> >>  > > >>
> >>  > > >>------------------------------------------------------------
> >>  > > >>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>  > > >
> >>  > > >
> >>  > > >
> >>  > > >
> >>  > > >
> >>  > > >**************
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> >>  > >
> >>  >
> >>
> >>
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> >>  > > >
> >>  > >
> >>  > >
> >>  > >
> >>  >
> >>  >
> >>  >
> >>  >
> >>  >**************
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> >>  >AOL Music.
> >>  >
> >>
> >>
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> >>  >
> >>  >------------------------------------------------------------
> >  > >The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>
> >>  ------------------------------------------------------------
> >>  The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >**************
> >Who's never won?  Biggest Grammy Award surprises of all time on
> >AOL Music.
> >
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> >
> >------------------------------------------------------------
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> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> 
> 




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