linguistics in the news: case of the missing "t"
Wilson Gray
hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Thu Nov 5 01:09:05 UTC 2009
Once upon a time, I had come across only a single BE-speaker who used
a glo?al stop in words like "glottal." This friend has been mentioned
here on numerous occasions. He is the person who changed his name from
"Davídica" to "David." He is the person who pronounces "street" as
"skreek" in unmonitored speech, but as "street" in monitored speech.
Hence, he has remained unpersuaded since 1961, when I first attempted
to call his attention to this phenomenon in his speech, that there is
*any* circumstance in which he pronounces "street" as "skreek," even
though he *always* uses "skreek" in *every* circumstance. Except in
that circumstance in which someone attempts to point out to him that
he uses "skreek."
David was once the only American of *any* race, creed, etc., etc., who
used the glo?al stop in what I'll loosely term the "British" manner.
Then I began to notice, in the '80's, its immense popularity among
rappers and hip-hop singers, Since this music was, at the time, an
Eastern phenomenon and a lot of the Eastern black people that I know
come from North Carolina, David's home state, for about thirty
seconds, I thought that I had the solution.
But I soon realized that it's *still* the case that David is the only
American whom *I* know or have *ever* known who uses the British
glo?al stop. Hence, the fact that a lot of black people now living in
the Northeast come from North Carolina, as David does, means
*nothing*. On The Judge's shows, I sometimes hear British glo?al stop
used by younger black people who aren't rappers and by "Blatins" and
"w(h)iggers."
IAC, though I think that I know how and why and whence the popularity
of the use of the British glo?al stop is spreading among BE speakers,
I have not the slightest clue as to how and why and whence the
phenomenon *originated* among us. Or among those young enough to be my
grandchildren, at least.
-Wilson
On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 5:53 PM, Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at wmich.edu> 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: linguistics in the news: case of the missing "t"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> 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:
>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>> -----------------------
>>>> 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
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ____________________________________________
>>>> We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]
>>>> On Behalf Of
>>>> James Smith
>>>> Sent: Wednesday, November 04, 2009 4:13 PM
>>>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>>> Subject: FYI: linguistics in the news: case of the missing "t"
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=8548383
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything
>>>> South SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued
>>>> jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and
>>>> decisively
>>>> |or slowly and cautiously.
>>>>
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>
--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain
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