[Ads-l] "Downsight"

[Herb Stahlke]

So we have final fortition, looking like final devoicing.  Are there
examples of it happening with /v, D, Z/ or /b, d, g/?  The only examples
I'm familiar with are /z/ --> /s/, and it appears to be morphologically
restricted as well.  I don't hear "fleece" for "fleas" or /kars/ for
/ka:rz/.  Are there examples beyond the -ese suffix?


Herb

On Sat, Dec 27, 2014 at 11:06 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "Downsight"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Sat, Dec 27, 2014 at 10:40 PM, Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > pronunciation of -ese words is a shortened vowel with a voiceless
> > consonant, which makes the consonant sound like a fortis instead of a
> lenis.
> >
>
> That's the pronunciation that I use. The consonant sounds like a fortis
> because it *is* a fortis, in my idiolect, at least.
>
> I was in my 50's, before I finally flashed on the phonolonical underpinning
> of "heathen Chinee": a single member of the set, {heathen Chinee[z]}.
>
>
> --
> -Wilson
> -----
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -Mark Twain
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