1937 emper-or

[Laurence Horn]

At 8:50 AM -0400 3/20/09, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>Last night, between two Zoltan Korda-directed "classics" set in
>India, I heard the ever-talking James A. Fitzpatrick say "em-per-OR".
>
>1937, "India On Parade: A Fitzpatrick Traveltalk" (9 minutes),
>broadcast on TCN at 9:38 PM EDT.
>
>Joel
>
Moving in the opposite direction is "mentor", which started out as
men-tor (via the guy in the Odyssey), but now I think usually rhymes
with "renter", although I see AHD lists the unreduced pronunciation
first.  Of course the emergence of "mentee" (in AHD4 but not AHD3)
requires the earlier reanalysis of "mentor" as an agentive.

LH, thinking the -or/-ee contrastive context will also lead to full
pronunciations, e.g. in "Advis-ORS and advis-EES will be seated
together at the August 31 dinner in the dining hall."

P.S.  I don't mean to suggest that the destressing-cum-schwa reduced
pronunciation *necessarily* involves reanalysis--we get "Hector" and
"Nestor" with reduction even in the absence of "hectee" or "nestee".

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