linguistics in the news: case of the missing "t"

[Paul Johnston]

This phenomenon is what we always called Glottaling--much more common
in Britain, but the American version is spreading.  Myself, i have it
pretty consistently before syllabic /n/, variably before syllabic /l/
as in total = [t at U?L] and in final position occasionally.  This, by
the way, was the environments that English dialects had it 125 years
ago.  You know we've really gotten into Glottaling when it  starts
appearing between vowels, as it does in British varieties, so city=
[sI?i].  I've never heard this from americans except where an earlier
syllabic /n/ generated (or re-generated) a vowel before it, and there
you can get some pretty English-sounding realizations.  When I came
back from overseas, I was watching VH1 and they were interviewing
some Brooklyn-born, AAVE-speaking hip-hop artist--don't remember who,
but they asked him what his real first name was.  It was "Martin" =
[mA:?In]--exactly the Cockney pronunciation.

Paul Johnston
On Nov 4, 2009, at 3:03 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: linguistics in the news: case of the missing "t"
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
>
> At 3:01 PM -0500 11/4/09, David Bergdahl wrote:
>> That's probably what's meant by "T" being pronounced in the throat...
>> -db
>
> I'm sure it is, but a reference to the (universal) pronunciation of
> "uh-oh" or "un(h)-un(h)" (however that's spelled) might have made the
> phenomenon seem a bit less exotic and sui generis.
>
> LH
>
>>
>> On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 1:46 PM, David A. Daniel <dad at pokerwiz.com>
>> wrote:
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>>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>  Poster:       "David A. Daniel" <dad at POKERWIZ.COM>
>>>  Subject:      Re: linguistics in the news: case of the missing "t"
>>>
>>> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> -----------
>>>
>>>  What, these people never heard of a glo-al stop?
>>>  DAD
>>>
>>>
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>>>  Subject: FYI: linguistics in the news: case of the missing "t"
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