LaGuardia, La Bomba

[Randy Alexander]

I don't understand the purpose of Ron's insults, but --

Having lived in NYC for a few years (1999-2002), I can say I've
definitely heard people there pronounce the first "a" in LaGuardia
variously with a schwa and an [a].

Strangely though, I've never heard the "uar" part as [woɚ] (lower-case
O and right-hook schwa), but always as [wɑɚ] (script A and right-hook
schwa).

Lafayette is interesting as well.  In Cincinnati, I once lived on a
street called Lafayette, and everyone pronounced it la-fee-'et, though
now, other than that specific context I would say la-fye-'et.

Randy

On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 2:29 PM, Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at wmich.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at WMICH.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: LaGuardia, La Bomba
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I vary--schwa always in the final -a, but both /a/ and /@/ with the
> first one.  My parents had schwas, both from NY, neither Italian.
>
> Paul Johnston
> On Feb 8, 2009, at 2:04 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>
>>>> artificial and and stilted speaker to those who hear you.
>
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>



--
Randy Alexander
Jilin City, China
My Manchu studies blog:
http://www.bjshengr.com/manchu

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