[Lexicog] new nosey word

[Peter Kirk]

On 12/04/2004 14:05, Ron Moe wrote:

> In my dialect of English it is impossible for there to be a vowel between
> the 't' 'l' and 'd' in 'bottled' since the tip of the tongue never leaves
> the roof of the mouth. Merriam-Webster is either wrong or describing some
> other dialect of English. By contrast the tip of the tongue does drop
> between the 'l' and the 'd' in 'clued'. I've noticed numerous times that
> so-called phonetic transcriptions put a schwa before a syllabic 'l' 'r' or
> nasal. But there is a distinct difference between the sequence of 'k' and
> 'l' in 'cull' and 'clue'. The first is [k*l] and the second [klu] (where *
> is schwa). Similarly there is no difference in pronunciation between
> 'burr'
> (thorny seed) and 'brrr' (idiophone for 'cold'). Both are [bR] (where
> R is a
> syllabic r). My native speaker intuition tells me there is no vowel in
> these
> words. English spelling is a poor guide to phonetics. If I was to
> write all
> these words phonemically, I would spell them /batld, klud, k*l, klu, br,
> br/. Similarly 'button' is /b*tn/, 'burned' is /brnd/ with a syllabic 'r',
> 'bull' is /bl/ (notice the contrast with 'cull' /k*l/), 'hackle' is /hAkl/
> (where A is front, near-open). Unfortunately I have no minimal pairs to
> prove a phonemic contrast between C*S and CS (where S is a syllabic).


Interesting to see the subtle difference between your dialect and mine.
In mine there is I think always a real vowel in stressed syllables,
except e.g. for "brrr"; syllabic L, N etc are always unstressed. Also
syllabic R is for me a phonetic vowel.

For some speakers "interred" vs. "entered" might be the minimal pair you
are looking for, with different stress. For me, the second syllables of
these words differ only in length and stress.

An extreme example of syllabic consonants is the alleged British dialect
pronunciation of "Birmingham" as something like [brmŋm], monosyllabic
with a syllabic R (fourth letter is eng).


--
Peter Kirk
peter at qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk at qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/




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