~ (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Laurence Horn]

At 4:08 PM -0500 2/22/09, Alison Murie wrote:
>On Feb 22, 2009, at 3:09 PM, Paul Johnston 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: ~ (UNCLASSIFIED)
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>Tom,
>>That;'s because all the local Standards are 95% similar (I'd put it a
>>little less, but not much) on a phonemic basis. Most of the
>>differences are on the sub-phonemic level.  The consonant systems,
>>phonemically, are nearly identical all over the US, for instance.
>>The vowel systems do differ phonemically, but not much with this kind
>>of variety--your "awe-dropping", rhoticity vs. non-rhoticity (only a
>>few non-rhotic or, more likely, variably rhotic newscasters, but
>>those that are, Walters, King etc. are known for it) .  Some lexical
>>incidence differences appear in individual words, though this is the
>>stuff that the pronunciation guides concentrate on.  I'll give you
>>actual stats when I'm finished if you want to see them.  You'll be
>>surprised.
>>
>>Paul Johnston
>~~~~~~~~
>Walters?  I've lived most of my life out of range of her voice, but
>the few times I have heard it  I have assumed her speech to be
>completely idiosyncratic, largely attributable to a speech impediment,
>not a dialect.
>AM
>
Her deletion of intervocalic [r], as in the old SNL parodies of "Baba
Wawa", was certainly idiosyncratic and not simple non-rhoticism.

LH

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