low back merger--austentacious

[Joel S. Berson]

At 3/12/2010 10:01 PM, Herb Stahlke wrote:
>No, but in my SE Michigan speech, which is obviously the norm, there's
>a difference between the initial vowels of "ostentatious" and
>"osteopath."

That's not in my speech, and I can't even figure out what the
difference would be.  Herb, can you explain it without phonetic
symbols, rather by parallels with other words?

Thanks,
Joel

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