Eyjafjallajokull from an icelander

[Tom Zurinskas]

I don't dispute that "huddle" is two syllables, but notation that would write it "hudl" would be bad because how would you foespel (phonetically spell) "huddling" to show 3 syllables.  To foespel it "hudling" would look like 2 syllables.  In truespel it's ~hudool and ~hudooleeng (where ~ool is as in "wool".


Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL7+
see truespel.com phonetic spelling








>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Geoff Nathan
> Subject: Re: Eyjafjallajokull from an icelander
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Pretty much 'what Paul said'.
>
> In addition, for many Americans, /t/ before /l/ is actually pronounced as a glottal stop--i.e. there is no tongue-tip contact at all, in words like 'cutlet', 'outlaw'.
> For examples like 'bottle', 'huddle' the /l/ is a whole syllable by itself (something that Mr. Z has disputed, but this is confirmed by spectrograms and x-rays), and the sound is actually a [d] for many speakers, not even a flap.
> The t-l affricate simply doesn't exist in most dialects of English, but you can hear it twice in the Icelandic example provided (once between vowels--'Fjalla', and once in word-final position in 'Jokull'
>
> Geoff
>
> Geoffrey S. Nathan
> Faculty Liaison, C&IT
> and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program
> +1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT)
> +1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics)
>
> ----- "Paul Johnston" wrote:
>
>> From: "Paul Johnston"
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2010 1:25:09 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
>> Subject: Re: Eyjafjallajokull from an icelander
>>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: Paul Johnston
>> Subject: Re: Eyjafjallajokull from an icelander
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Strictly speaking, these are combinations of t-l, but, except for the
>> last three in rapid speech (where you just might get the affricate
>> Geoffrey is talking about), they involve different places within the
>> syllable for the /l/. In bottle, etc., the /l/ (usually a dark,
>> velarized one) is the PEAK of the syllable--the usual place for a
>> vowel. The /t/ before it is an alveolar flap, not quite a /d/, but
>> voiced like one, closer to a Spanish intervocalic single r. In the
>> other 3 cases you mention, the /l/ is in the onset of the syllable.
>> The /t/ before it is a regular /t/, most of the time, probably
>> unreleased. In the /tl/ combinations mentioned here, the whole sound
>> is best looked at as an affricate, a stop where you give it a lateral
>> release by dropping the sides of the tongue after alveolar contact--
>> and has more characteristics of a single sound, the way /tS/ is in
>> English. As I say, in rapid speech, this sound is a possibility in
>> bootlicker, antler, ant lion, but not in the others. In Icelandic,
>> it came historically from a long voiceless /l/ (pre-aspirated?), in
>> turn from a long voiced /l/ (final sonorants devoiced in Old
>> Icelandic), as the spelling shows.
>>
>> Paul Johnston
>> On Apr 22, 2010, at 12:59 PM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
>>
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>> -----------------------
>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>> Poster: Victor Steinbok
>>> Subject: Re: Eyjafjallajokull from an icelander
>>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> ---------
>>>
>>> Without suggesting error, I would like an explanation of bottle,
>>> throttle, mettle, cattle, settle, kettle, little, mantle, subtle
>> and
>>> boot-licker, antler, ant-lion--and, for good measure, metal, petal,
>>> portal. US might be closer to [d] in most of these (not
>> boot-licker,
>>> antler, ant-lion or mantle, and no US variant for little, for some
>>> reason), but OED says [t] for British. And mantle, little and
>> subtle
>>> have both schwa and non-schwa variants.
>>>
>>> VS-)
>>>
>>> On 4/22/2010 11:48 AM, Geoffrey Nathan wrote:
>>>> ... Since the combination of t-l is impossible in English, native
>>>> speakers find it hard to deal with, especially at the beginning or
>>>> ending of a word.
>>>
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>>
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