[Ads-l] Q: M silent in MN?
Joel S. Berson
Berson at ATT.NET
Sat Jan 3 19:19:17 UTC 2015
At 1/3/2015 11:25 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>On Jan 3, 2015, at 10:51 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>
> > At 1/3/2015 02:03 AM, W Brewer wrote:
> >
> >> What homework is JB wanting us to do for him now?
> >
> > OK, I'll confess.
> >
> > I really couldn't think of "mn" words silencing the M last night,
> only several (contra Larry's hypothesis)
>
>Au contraire. My hypothesis concerned all and only *initial*
>clusters; final ones work both ways ("damn" vs. "impugn").
My apology -- I didn't realize you were speaking of initial
clusters. However, I think GN would have been a less convincing
example than the MN of mnemonic. And can I assert that in "whi-nny"
/ "whi-mnam" the MN is an initial cluster (of a syllable)?
>LH
------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
More information about the Ads-l
mailing list