the three "n" s

Tue Mar 24 02:25:08 UTC 2009

I think you're talking about the letter <n>, not the phoneme /n/.
Certainly before a consonant the nasal is homorganic to that
consonant, which is what you're pointing out below.  However, there's
a little more involved.  The tongue forms the same sort of  "dam" in
/t, ch, k, d, j, g/.  The reason the airstream passes through the nose
with /m, n, ng/ is that the velum is lowered, opening the passage
through the nose, a separate gesture from what the tongue is doing.
While you're right, as I just noted, that there is no phonemic
contrast in nasals before a consonant, you could just as well include
/m/ here, even thought it's represented orthographically by a
different letter, <m>.  The priniciple is the same.  The nasal is
homorganic to a following consonant, in this case /p/ as in "lamp."
You insist that there is an actually pronounced /g/ after the nasal in
"sing," a fact that many of us have disputed and that Paul give some
good dialect examples of below.  Would you also say that there is a
final /b/ in "lamb" or "comb"?  Would these be different from "lam" or
"jamb"?  Both /b/ and /g/ got lost from speech in most dialects
several hundred years ago.

Herb

On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 2:35 PM, Tom Zurinskas <truespel at hotmail.com> wrote:
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> Poster:       Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      the three "n" s
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I'd say there are 3 ways of say the sound "n", the most often spoken sound of USA English.  For each, the tongue forms a dam so air is routed through the nose to make the "n" sound, but tongue placement differs, as per example in these three words; winter, finger, and danger.
>
> 1. the front n - Winter - (tongue tip contacts top gums)
> 2. the back n - Finger -  (back of tongue contacts the velum)
> 3. the middle n - Danger - (whole tongue rises to palate)
>
> These "n"s are not noticably different in sound, and are allophones of each other.
>
> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
> see truespel.com
>
>
>
> ----------------------------------------
>> Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 10:35:36 -0700
>> From: zwicky at STANFORD.EDU
>> Subject: act of show
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: Arnold Zwicky
>> Subject: act of show
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> from the Palo Alto Daily News of 21 March 2009, "Palo Alto shooting
>> suspect still at large", by Diana Samuels, p. 3:
>>
>> Police said Gil-Fernandez claimed affiliation with the Norteno street
>> gang, though that claim may have been mostly an act of show in Palo
>> Alto, where the Norteno gang doesn't have much of a presence.
>> .....
>>
>> that's "an act of show" 'a show, display, pretense'. a few more cites:
>>
>> I remembered my fiancé’s first time to pay me a visit at home. I
>> was listening to Metallica. At that time, he thought I was just
>> playing it to impress him. Later as we knew each other better, he
>> realized that it was not an act of show but simply my choice of music.
>> http://www.anintimateconversation.com/2009_02_01_archive.html
>>
>> Gabby,Lynette,Bree,Susan and Eddie are all part of a clan that has
>> secrets lies and webs of drama they all live in such a perfect area
>> yet knowing all the perfection is just an act of show!!!
>> http://www.tv.com/desperate-housewives/show/24641/reviews.html&flag=1&pg_rev=4
>>
>> Col. Gianfranco Cavallo of the Carabinieri paramilitary police said
>> the bomb appeared to be an "act of show" rather than an attack planned
>> to make victims.
>> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/bomb-damages-cars-in-downtown-rome-672350.html
>>
>> Actually it was our state governor, a female democrat (Ks) that
>> ordered them sent! I am sure that it was more of an act of show than
>> anything else.
>> http://world-news.newsvine.com/_news/2009/03/12/2537681-us-plans-for-mexico-border-violence
>>
>> there are also hits for "act of show-off"
>>
>> do you think if I show up with my guitar it won't be weired? won't
>> people think of it as an act of show off?
>> http://id.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080421191749AAV8jNh
>> [Yahoo! Indonesia]
>>
>> Again, McLeod depicts Ganda Singh as a shallow person of
>> pretentious nature whose ego was inflated by the mere receipt of a
>> book from McLeod and as an act of show-off, he carried it round under
>> his arm, with the title prominently displayed for all to see.
>> http://sikhspectrum.com/052007/mcleod/ch5.htm
>>
>> They dabble in esoteric themes like mysticism, sexual freedom,
>> death, the after-life and such things, as an act of show off.
>> http://ia.rediff.com/movies/2008/dec/01review-pakal-nakshatrangal.htm
>>
>> unlike the "act of show" examples, these seem to be from various asian
>> varieties of english.
>>
>> arnold
>>
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