prince and prints

Sun Apr 25 11:27:36 UTC 2010

There has been extensive research on the pronunciation of /t/'s between /n/'s and /s/'s. Some speakers of American English sometimes pronounce t's there and sometimes don't. It depends on many factors, including care, the likelihood the word will be misunderstood and how common the word is. Just quickly looking through some words on thefreedictionary.com I see that 'recompence' does have a 't' in the audio sample and 'comeuppance' does not.

In addition, other voiceless stops come and go between nasals and voiceless fricatives--many speakers have a /k/ in 'strength', and a /p/ in 'Chomsky'. But not all of them.

Sometimes the inserted stop is pronounced often enough that the spelling changes to reflect its permanent (linguists say 'lexical') status. This is the source of the 'p' in Hampstead and Hampshire, which originate as a compound of Old English ha:m 'home' and other words.

The insertion of voiceless stops here is an optional, automatic process, but since the sound inserted could be a phoneme (a distinctive, significant sound in English) it is sometimes perceived and sometimes not.

That's enough phonology for an early Sunday morning.

Geoffrey S. Nathan
Faculty Liaison, C&IT
and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program
+1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT)
+1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics)

----- "Tom Zurinskas" <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:

> From: "Tom Zurinskas" <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Sent: Sunday, April 25, 2010 6:31:34 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
> Subject: Re: prince and prints
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: prince and prints
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I don't think of it as an artifact at all.  If every word ending "nce"
> is pronounced ~ts, then it's a fact rather than artifact.  To foespel
> "since" as ~sins makes no sence ~sents if a ~t is heard.
>
> To say - when a person tries to say ending "ns" (nce) they have a hard
> time so they insert a "t", but the "t" is not really real, it's
> artificial, so even though you hear a "t" its not right to foespel it
> with a "t" - is not the way to go for phonetics.
>
> When "ph" stands for ~f, that's not and artifact.  Same with ending
> "nce" standing for ~ts.
>
> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL7+
> see truespel.com phonetic spelling
>
>
>
>
> >
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> > Sender: American Dialect Society
> > Poster: Herb Stahlke
> > Subject: Re: prince and prints
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > What you hear as [t] in "prince" is a result of timing. In
> > transitioning from the lowered velum, closed glottis, and alveolar
> > closure of /n/ to the raised velum, spread glottis, and less tight
> > alveolar closure of /s/, there is frequently a brief overlap during
> > which the velum is raised, the glottis is spread, and the alveolar
> > closure is tight, resulting in a transitory or epenthetic [t].
> While
> > this does occur frequently, it's not inevitable, and words like
> > "prince" can be and are pronounced without the overlap, hence
> without
> > the [t]. The [t] is, in other words, an artifact of articulatory
> > processes, not part of the word itself.
> >
> > Herb
> >
> > On Sat, Apr 24, 2010 at 9:53 AM, Tom Zurinskas wrote:
> >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> >> Sender: � � � American Dialect Society
> >> Poster: � � � Tom Zurinskas
> >> Subject: � � � prince and prints
> >>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >> I recently saw "comeuppance" and its foespeleeng (phonetic
> spelling)
> >>
> >> � /,kVm'Vp at ns/ � - No /ts/ ending
> >>
> >> in m-w.com it's
> >> � \(ˌ)kəm-ˈə-pən(t)s\ � and I hear ~kummupents (a definite ~ts
> ending)
> >>
> >> Why is it that the ~ts is not recognized in some phonetic notation?
> � For instance thefreedictionary.com:
> >>
> >> "prints" and "prince" rhyme � (i.e., "prints" ~prints and "prince"
> ~prints), but thefreedictionary drops the ~t and has prince as (prins)
> even though for the US and UK pronounciation as spoken on the site
> when clicked the ~t is evident before the ~s.
> >>
> >> ON that site this goes for:
> >> since (sins) - I hear for US and UK ~sints
> >> fence (fens) - I hear for US and UK ~fents
> >> dance (dans) - I hear for US ~dants and UK ~daants.
> >>
> >> I just can't understand how this error can exist; especially in
> light of the fact that in tradspeld English, when "n" is followed by
> "s" at the end of a word the "s" is spoken as ~z.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL7+
> >> see truespel.com phonetic spelling
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