[Ads-l] Pronunciation of "(anti)semitic"

[Laurence Horn]

But does the PIN/PEN merger operate before /t/?  Or after (as opposed to
before) nasals?

On Sat, Dec 3, 2022 at 12:39 PM James Eric Lawson <jel at nventure.com> wrote:

> 'Pathetic', I say hopefully. Yet in my experience, the PIN/PEN merger
> seems the stronger and more likely influence.
>
> On 12/3/22 08:03, Laurence Horn wrote:
> > On sympathetic analogical reformations:
> >
> > Arnold’s blogpost mentions that Ben suggested that the prior existence
> of -etic adjectives might be influencing the shift to “anti-semetic",
> presumably in the way that (as we’ve discussed ages ago on the list) the
> much-maligned “nucular” pronunciation of “nuclear” (as in the title of
> Geoff Nunberg’s book _Going Nucular_) was/is partly a product of a set of
> -Vcular adjectives like “jocular”, “(bin)ocular”, “spectacular”,
> “particular”, “vehicular”, “secular”, etc. etc.,  and the virtual
> non-existence of -Vclear ones other than “cochlear” and “nuclear” itself.
> So what would the -etic influencers be? I’m thinking “diabetic” might be a
> role. Or perhaps (although it doesn’t allude to a disorder) “athletic” or
> “sympathetic". Or, dare I suggest, “phonetic". Others (“ascetic”,
> “copacetic”) are probably too rare or abstruse to play a role.  Here’s a
> list of rhymes:
> >
> > https://tinyurl.com/bdft32w2 <https://tinyurl.com/bdft32w2>
> >
> > Of course “(anti-)semitic” does rhyme with “clitic”.  And (at least in
> the US) with “Hasidic”,
> >
> > LH
> >
> >> On Dec 2, 2022, at 7:28 PM, Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU> wrote:
> >>
> >> More often than not, it seems (most recently tonight by Johathan Karl
> on ABC World News), the pronunciation of the word "antisemitic" has been
> manifesting the penultimate vowel as [E] rather than the historical and
> orthographic [I].
> >>
> >> --Charlie
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> --
> James Eric Lawson
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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