ont/ahnt

Thu Oct 7 01:47:54 UTC 2010

Those are good exx., Larry. Now I can write that poem.

JL

On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 9:38 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: ont/ahnt
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 9:11 PM -0400 10/6/10, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >Hog rhymes with frog and log.  It has [ a:] as in gaga.
> >
> >Dog doesn't rhyme with anything I can think of offhand. It has [D: ] as in
> >"chalk").
>
> Ditto for me, essentially, but it *could* rhyme with other words.  In
> fact it rhymes with "blawg" (a law-based blog, with supposedly 3.95
> million g-hits; not to be confused with "blog" itself, which of
> course rhymes with "frog" and "log") and with "Smaug" (Tolkien's
> dragon, which doesn't rhyme with "smog"), although I concede that
> those are spelling pronunciations, since neither comes up much in
> ordinary conversation.
>
> LH
>
> >
> >On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 7:14 PM, Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at wmich.edu
> >wrote:
> >
> >>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >>  -----------------------
> >>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >>  Poster:       Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at WMICH.EDU>
> >>  Subject:      Re: ont/ahnt
> >>
> >>
>
> >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >>  Dear Jonathan,
> >>  That's my pattern too.  My wife makes fun of my pronunciation of both
> dog
> >>  and hog, (She has [D]).
> >>
> >>  Paul Johnston
> >>   On Oct 6, 2010, at 7:10 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >>
> >>  > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >>  -----------------------
> >>  > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >>  > Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> >>  > Subject:      Re: ont/ahnt
> >>  >
> >>
>
> >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>  >
> >>  > Father and bother rhyme perfectly for me.
> >>  >
> >>  > Dog and hog don't. At all.
> >>  >
> >>  > JL
> >>  >
> >>  >
> >>  >
> >>  >
> >>  > On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 6:37 PM, Paul Johnston <
> paul.johnston at wmich.edu
> >>  >wrote:
> >>  >
> >>  >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >>  >> -----------------------
> >>  >> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >>  >> Poster:       Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at WMICH.EDU>
> >>  >> Subject:      Re: ont/ahnt
> >>  >>
> >>  >>
> >>
>
> >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>  >>
> >>  >> "CON"/"KAHN" would work as [kDn]/[kAn] in the Pittsburgh area, I
> think,
> >>  and
> >>  >> neither would rhyme with "town", which would be [tan].  I just
> checked
> >>  with
> >>  >> two colleagues of mine, one from Canonsburg, PA, the other from
> >>  Fairmont,
> >>  >> WV, and they had different vowels in father and bother (a
> near-minimal
> >>  pair)
> >>  >> as [A] vs. [D] (rounded low vowel).  The latter is LOT/THOUGHT for
> them.
> >>  >> The former is, in Wells's terminology, PALM.
> >>  >>
> >>  >> Paul Johnston
> >>  >> On Oct 6, 2010, at 6:17 PM, David Wake wrote:
> >>  >>
> >>  >>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >>  >> -----------------------
> >>  >>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >>  >>> Poster:       David Wake <dwake at STANFORDALUMNI.ORG>
> >>  >>> Subject:      Re: ont/ahnt
> >>  >>>
> >>  >>
> >>
>
> >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>  >>>
> >>  >>> Can you offer a minimal pairs for these dialects?  E.g.
> "con"/"Kahn",
> >>  >>> perhaps?  I thought that, with the exception of Eastern New
> England,
> >>  >>> these dialects would all use their LOT vowel (rounded or unrounded)
> >>  >>> for both lexical sets.
> >>  >>>
> >>  >>> D
> >>  >>>
> >>  >>> On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 11:16 AM, Paul Johnston <
> >>  paul.johnston at wmich.edu>
> >>  >> wrote:
> >>  >>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >>  >> -----------------------
> >>  >>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >>  >>>> Poster:       Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at WMICH.EDU>
> >>  >>>> Subject:      Re: ont/ahnt
> >>  >>>>
> >>  >>
> >>
>
> >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>  >>>>
> >>  >>>> Most dialects where the LOT class is a low back ROUNDED vowel will
> >>  >> pronounce ont and ahnt differently, particularly because of the /n/
> >>  after
> >>  >> it-- Eastern New England, the area from Erie PA through Pittsburgh
> down
> >>  into
> >  > >> West Virginia and into Kentucky, several Upper Southern dialects,
> >>  Canada--in
> >>  >> Eastern New England, the difference should be really striking: [D]
> (I
> >>  mean
> >>  >> the IPA symbol for a low back rounded vowel here) vs. a front [a:].
> >>  >>>>
> >>  >>>> Paul Johnston
> >>  >>>>
> >>  >>>>
> >>  >>>> On Oct 6, 2010, at 10:23 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> >>  >>>>
> >>  >>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >>  >> -----------------------
> >>  >>>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >>  >>>>> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> >>  >>>>> Subject:      Re: ont/ahnt
> >>  >>>>>
> >>  >>
> >>
>
> >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>  >>>>>
> >>  >>>>> At 10/5/2010 08:49 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
> >>  >>>>>> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
> >>  >>>>>>
> >>  >>>>>> On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 5:45 PM, David Wake <
> >>  dwake at stanfordalumni.org>
> >>  >> wrote:
> >>  >>>>>>> "ont"
> >>  >>>>>>
> >>  >>>>>> In most dialects of AmE, "ont" = "ahnt."
> >>  >>>>>
> >>  >>>>> Can you give me some examples where it doesn't?  And please don't
> say
> >>  >>>>> you won't.
> >>  >>>>>
> >>  >>>>> Joel
> >>  >>>>>
> >>  >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >>  >>>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>  >>>>
> >>  >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >>  >>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>  >>>>
> >>  >>>
> >>  >>> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >>  >>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>  >>
> >>  >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >>  >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>  >>
> >>  >
> >>  >
> >>  >
> >>  > --
> >>  > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> >>  truth."
> >>  >
> >>  > ------------------------------------------------------------
> >>  > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>
> >>  ------------------------------------------------------------
> >>  The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >--
> >"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >
> >------------------------------------------------------------
> >The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org