wh-clusters

[Larry Trask]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Martin Huld writes:

>  I was wondering if anyone felt as I do that the inverse-w is an
>  inappropriate strategy for analyzing the remaining cases of phonemically
>  distinct <wh> in American dialects.

I've encountered a number of speakers who retain /hw/ -- both
American and Scottish, with the odd Irish speaker.  I've asked them
for their intuitions about the status of /hw/, and I've discovered
that they split about equally into two groups.

One group is certain that /hw/ is a cluster, consisting of /h/
followed by /w/.  The other group is equally certain that /hw/
is a single consonant, distinct from all other consonants, and
not a cluster at all.

Since I belong to the first group, and since the cluster analysis
is historically correct, I was startled the first time I met
a member of the second group, but I've met more of them since
then, and there's no doubt that some people's intuitions are
quite clear on this point: one consonant, a voiceless [w].


Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: 01273-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: 01273-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)