Terlet

[Mark Mandel]

I would venture a step further and guess that the dialect *merges* /oI/ and
/@r/ into something that is acoustically between them. When a non-merging
speaker hears it, their brain (right on, Ron!) says "Huh! That's not {oI /
@r}! It sounds more like {@r / oI}. I'll label it as that."

m a m


On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 8:39 AM, <ronbutters at aol.com> wrote:

> Yes, Joel's question is a sensible one and is basically the same one I have
> been asking about the "hypercorrection" scenario. It seems more probable to
> me that there is what Jonathan termed "lightly articulated" r-coloring that
> is variably present all along. The key factor is in the ears of the
> stereotyping outsider-hearers, not the mouths of the dialect speakers.
>  (Of course, our dialects do not tell us to say anything, our brains do.)
> Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Date:         Mon, 22 Mar 2010 14:28:27
> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: [ADS-L] Terlet
>
> I think I was unclear.  If someone's dialect told him instead of
> "toylet" to say "terlit" *and* he was a-rhotic, what would he say
> instead?  It was half a joke and half a question if there was any
> such pronuciation.
>
> Joel
>

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