[Ads-l] _beyond_

Tue May 31 12:57:09 UTC 2016

I think we've been over this ground in the past. (Warning: detailed phonological description ahead)

As I understand it, the allophone of /t/ before /n/ in many speakers of American English is a glottal stop, regardless of whether the /n/ is syllabic (as it is in 'sentence', 'Clinton') or in an onset (as it is in 'catnip', 'whatnot' etc.)

The controlling feature is 'unreleased'. For many (I would guess most) Americans, /t/ is unreleased and pronounced as a glottal stop when in syllable coda followed by a consonant other than /l/. New York speech is distinctive in that the /l/ exception does not apply, so that even 'bottle', 'cattle' also have glottal stops. Thus most speakers have glottal stops in 'what-for' (as in 'I'll give you what-for'!), 'Batman', 'white shoes' (a famous half of a minimal pair with 'why choose'), and even 'Great White Way' (i.e. even before glides).

An additional complication is that I've observed (but, to my knowledge nobody has formally studied this) that in words like 'Clinton' and 'sentence' the *first* syllable entirely loses the /n/, in that the vowel is not nasalized and the /n/ is elided, which if frequently is before voiceless consonants. That is, it comes out as [sɛʔns] (for those for whom this won't render: [sE?ns])

Geoff

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________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
Sent: Monday, May 30, 2016 9:56 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: _beyond_

---------------------- 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: _beyond_
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> On May 30, 2016, at 9:23 PM, Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM> =
wrote:
>=20
> And there's the Sanders staffer on MSNBC who regularly says "clin?in, =
where
> the vowels are lax, as expected, and nasalized, as expected, but I =
don't
> hear an /n/ in either syllable.

Well, I don't know about the lack of a final [n], but the rest of it =
seems consistent with what in these parts is sometimes called a "New =
Bri?in" (or occasionally just "Connecticut") accent, in which such names =
and words like "kitten" and "mitten" (ki?in, mi?in) involve a glottal =
stop and no [t] closure.  Such speakers also have an [I] vowel (or maybe =
barred-i) and not a schwa in the unstressed syllable, where I have a =
schwa.  If there's an -n in the first syllable, e.g. "Brinton" instead =
of "Britain", I'd expect something very much as you describe, but maybe =
with an actual -n at the end.  (I just noticed I can pronounce "Clinton" =
two ways, one what I assume is the usual U.S pronunciation, /'klInt at n/, =
and the other definitely glottalized--impressionistically, I have both =
glottal stop and alveolar closure following a nasalized vowel, whereas =
the "New Bri?in" version I mentioned above has only the glottal stop =
(and a different unstressed vowel, as noted).

LH

P.S.  If you're familiar with the "No you di?int" meme, the "New =
Britain" pronunciation is similar except it's just the voiceless =
intervocalics that go full-glottal. As verification, there's always the =
ever-reliable urban dictionary, s.v. "Oh no you didn't":

(Pronounced: o no you dit-ten) A colloquial expression of incredulity, =
voiced upon witnessing another's action or statement...=20
>=20
> On Mon, May 30, 2016 at 2:02 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>=20
>> On Sun, May 29, 2016 at 9:29 PM, Laurence Horn =
<laurence.horn at yale.edu>
>> wrote:
>>=20
>>> Mebbe so, but do you pronounce "uh-oh" or "unh-unh" (the negative =
one,
>> not
>>> to be confused with the glottal-stopless "uh-huh") without one?  Or =
do
>> you
>>> just avoid both?  (I don't have one in "beyond" and don't recall =
hearing
>> it
>>> from others, but I might have missed it.)
>>=20
>>=20
>> I had real words in mind, like bo?le, bu?on, no?in', etc. used by
>> hip-hoppers, rappers, and random people on reality shows. However, it =
seems
>> to be falling out of fashion. A friend, he of "up the skreek" fame =
has
>> glo?al stops as a native feature of his speech, though he claims that =
he
>> "don't use no glo?al stop!" In his case, I find it interesting.
>>=20
>> IME, very few people use "be?ond. I first heard it used by a single =
girl
>> down home in Texas, ca. 1947. So, I figured it for a local thing. but =
over
>> the dekkids, I've heard it random instances of it in the wild from =
everyone
>> everywhere. A couple of sites transcribe the word as approx. "be-ond"
>> preceding "be-yond." But every site that has audio gives "be-yond."
>>=20
>> Have you ever heard BE [CjV-] > [CrV-]: beautiful, Buick > =
b[ru]tiful,
>> B[r]uick? It's *far* more common than be?ond. How about BE intrusive =
r in I
>> am, Buick > I ram, Burick? Also more common than be?ond, even though, =
IME,
>> there is no restriction of be?ond to any particular subset of =
speakers that
>> I have noticed.
>>=20
>> I've heard be?ond once, so far, this year, promptingmotivating me to =
wonder
>> what other people's experience might be. I can't recall when the last =
time
>> was that I heard it before this year.
>> --
>> -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
>>=20
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - =
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org&d=3DAwIBaQ&c=3D-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=3DwFp3X4Mu39hB2bf13gtz0ZpW1TsS=
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>>=20
>=20
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - =
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=3Dhttp-3A__www.americandialect.=
org&d=3DAwIBaQ&c=3D-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=3DwFp3X4Mu39hB2bf13gtz0ZpW1TsS=
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