LaGuardia, La Bomba 2

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

Note that the "La" of "Lafayette" gets secondary stress, hence is less likely 
to be reduced to schwa.

1. Whether or not the second syllable of "LaGuardia" is an [a] or an open-o 
is surely a matter, at least in part, of whether the speaker has   [a]/open-o 
merger."

2. I am not intending to insult here, but assertions such as "I have never 
heard" are scientifically even less reliable than "I never say." How can one 
possibly recall from an entire lifetime the subtle phonetics of the pronunciation 
of a word that one hears relatively rarely, especially when one has never 
been listening specifically for the difference between such highly similar vowels 
as the ones in question? This is not to say that self-reporting of the 
putative behavior of others reflected in Wordsworthian tranquilty is worthless (such 
reports are, after all, based on the intuitions of one native speaker about 
his dialect area), just a suggestion that some level of scientific objectivity 
is needed if data are to be given much importance beyond the merely anecdotal.


In a message dated 2/9/09 1:31:00 AM, strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM writes:


> Strangely though, I've never heard the "uar" part as (lower-case
> O and right-hook schwa), but always as (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.
> 




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