how is the prefix "ex" really spoken (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Herb Stahlke]

As Labov et al. have shown in their Phonological Atlas of North
American English, there is considerable overlap between the range of
pronunciations of [E] and the range of pronunciations of [ae] among
American English speakers.   So we may hear tokens that are difficult
to categorize.

Herb

On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 7:00 PM, Tom Zurinskas <truespel at hotmail.com> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: how is the prefix "ex" really spoken (UNCLASSIFIED)
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>
> You can hear 'em at thefreedictionary.com.  Click on the flags for audio.  On second listening I hear the first "e" in excess more like an ~e (as in "bet") than an ~a.  Certainly it's an ~a (as in "hat") for "access".  Having listened to a bunch of words with "ex" prefixes I thought the "e" in "excess" seemed different trending toward ~a rather than ~e.
>
>
> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL7+
> see truespel.com phonetic spelling
>
>
>>
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>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC"
>> Subject: Re: how is the prefix "ex" really spoken (UNCLASSIFIED)
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>
>>>
>>> ~aks was the pronunciation for both USA and UK for one word, "excess"
>>> ~akses
>>>
>>>
>>
>> How was "access" pronounced? The same as "excess"?
>> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
>> Caveats: NONE
>>
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