[Ads-l] /hw/ vs. /w/ (was: Re: which)

[Herbert F. Stahlke]

My mother, born in 1906, was a hw/w speaker.  She grew up with German as her first language and began learning English in elementary school first in Elmore, OH, and later in Delray, MI, an industrial suburb of Detroit.  However, I found that, much later in life, she was not entirely consistent in her usage.  It tended to show up for emphasis or contrast but the /h/ would disappear when she was relaxed.  It's the same pragmatic distribution I've found in some Great Plains and Midlands speakers who have implosive voiced stops under emphasis and contrast but not otherwise.  In contrast I've heard Southern speakers whose voiced stops are consistently implosive.

Herb

On July 9, 2020, at 9:20 PM, "James E. Clapp" <j.clapp at earthlink.net> wrote:

I grew up with--and never lost--a distinction between 'why' /hway/ (interrogative) and 'why' /wye/ (interjection).

Hence: "Wye, no!  Hway would you think that?"

Or simply:  "Wye, hway would you think that?"

Is this just my mother's (and now my) idiolect, or was that once a common distinction?

Parenthetically, I'll bet Betty Comden and Adolph Green, the lyricists for "Wonderful Town" (1953) (music by Leonard Bernstein), would have been dismayed to hear their line "Why oh why oh why oh, why did I ever leave Ohio?" without the /h/ sounds that make the alliteration with oHIo work.

James Clapp


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> On Behalf Of Joe Salmons
Sent: Wednesday, July 08, 2020 3:32 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: /hw/ vs. /w/ (was: Re: which)

Thanks. Fashion aside, that makes sense ... 

On 7/8/20, 2:31 PM, "American Dialect Society on behalf of Laurence Horn" <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU on behalf of laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:

Well, at least this time I’ll change the subject line.  I don’t know if there are speakers who retain the distinction for some lexical items that historically displayed it while merging elsewhere.  There *are* speakers like me who artificially induce the distinction in overtly contrastive
environments:  “Did you say ‘weather’ /'wEdh at r/ or ‘whether’ /'hwEdh at r/?”
Or “‘Did you mean 'witch’ or “which’?”  Or, I suppose, “Are you talking about ‘wide wale’ or ‘wide whale’?”  I love the image of wide-whale corduroys…

LH

On Jul 8, 2020, at 3:13 PM, Baker, John <JBAKER at STRADLEY.COM> wrote:

I’ve lost various aspects of my native Kentucky dialect since I last lived there decades ago, but I seem to retain /hw/, although the extent of this varies by word.

Do other speakers retain /hw/ for words such as “whale,” for which (at least for me) it is relatively more pronounced?

John Baker

From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> On Behalf Of Laurence Horn
Sent: Wednesday, July 8, 2020 10:27 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: weird "which"

External Email - Think Before You Click


Thanks, Matt. So not New England, despite the practice of my wife (b. NYC 1944, raised CT). Interesting. I know there’s a complete merger for my students (and children) except for some students from Kentucky and adjacent regions, consistent with the below finding.

LH

On Jul 8, 2020, at 10:21 AM, Gordon, Matthew J. <GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU< mailto:GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU <GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU>>> wrote:

It was examined by Labov and colleagues for the Atlas of North American English (published in 2006 with data collected in 1990s). They found the distinction between /hw/ and /w/ scattered across the US with a concentration of distinguishers in the South. Their isogloss goes south from West Virginia to GA and has a narrow band that extends west to Lubbock. Map is on p. 50 if you have ANAE.


I believe it's age-graded in their data. Their narrative definitely suggests it's disappearing from use.


Matt

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