11.563, Disc: Underlying Schwa?

[The LINGUIST Network]

LINGUIST List:  Vol-11-563. Tue Mar 14 2000. ISSN: 1068-4875.

Subject: 11.563, Disc: Underlying Schwa?

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1)
Date:  Mon, 13 Mar 2000 14:03:36 -0500 (EST)
From:  Jorge Guitart <guitart at acsu.buffalo.edu>
Subject:  Re: 11.511, Disc: Underlying Shwa?

2)
Date:  Mon, 13 Mar 2000 01:15:45 -0500
From:  "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at nb.net>
Subject:  Re: 11.553, Disc: Underlying Schwa?

3)
Date:  Mon, 13 Mar 2000 21:06:04 -0500 (EST)
From:  kdcaldw at interserv.com
Subject:  Re: 11.542, Disc: Underlying Schwa?

-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------

Date:  Mon, 13 Mar 2000 14:03:36 -0500 (EST)
From:  Jorge Guitart <guitart at acsu.buffalo.edu>
Subject:  Re: 11.511, Disc: Underlying Shwa?

James Fidelholtz wrote:
> Going back to Jorge's original query:
>
> >1. Given that shwa appears predictably in weakly stressed syllables in
> >AE, is there a ***class*** of vowels that are pronounced shwa under
> >weak stress,
>
> Yes.  ALL vowels (see below) [Oh, well, SOME nonlow front V reduce to
> 'barred-i' instead of shwa, generally due to environmental factors (eg
> j_kt, [in 'object'] ie palatals)]
>
> >2. [snip] Is it the case, then, that swha alternates only with vowels
> >other than front nonlow or are there cases of alternation between front
> >nonlow and shwa?
>
> Well, we have the following examples:
> lEmur, l at myUri@n
> salIva, sal at vAt
> VEn at s,  V at n(j)Uzi at n
> judgm at nt, judgm_e_ntl (also barred-i in judgment)
> The only vowel I don't know any shwa alternations for is [oy] (see
> Fidelholtz w/ Browne ca. 1974 (Gtown paper 'Oy, oy, oy' in volume edited
> by Shuy & Bailey); compare, however, 'destroy/destr_u_ction'  By the
> way, see Fidelholtz 1976, pp. 200-213 in the CLS vol. 10, for a fairly
> thorough treatment of VR in English.
>
> >2. Are there underlying shwas?  Calculus, ...[snip].  Is there a
> >pronunciation of calcul- that would show that the underlying
> >vowel is other than shwa?
>
>         Yes, all of the above.  The only source (not quite, but after
> any other C) for [j] is in certain environments before lax [u] (when it
> gets tensed, basically before CV, with a few more details covered in
> Fidelholtz 1967 (_MITRLEQPR_, I forget which number right now).
>         And what about nonalternating shwas?  You'd have to torture me
> to get me to admit that they're underlying.  If pushed, I'd derive them
> from an unspecified vowel, which, being unstressed, simply reduces.
>
> OK, the facts, as always, get a little messy around the edges, but it
> seems to me that the general situation is quite clear: unstressed vowels
> reduce to shwa (or one of its contextual variants, depending on the
> dialect, etc.), except for:
> 	'frequent' words if the vowel is before two consonants and a
> stressed vowel and in the first syllable of the word (this is actually
> somewhat more complicated); frequency or rarity has no effect in
> unstressed syllables surrounded by stressed ones: all vowels reduce
> always (cf. 'sal_i_vate', where sal_I_va shows the vowel is underlyingly
> tense, and 'comp_e_nsate').
> 	Jim
>

Jorge Guitart comments:

I find Dr. Fidelholtz's answers to my original questions totally
convincing. Therefore I am dropping the subject.
Thanks to all who wrote.

jg


-------------------------------- Message 2 -------------------------------

Date:  Mon, 13 Mar 2000 01:15:45 -0500
From:  "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at nb.net>
Subject:  Re: 11.553, Disc: Underlying Schwa?

The LINGUIST Network wrote:

> ...

> Date:  Sun, 12 Mar 2000 19:13:52 +0800
> From:  <jakob at saturn.yzu.edu.tw>
> Subject:  different kinds of schwa ?
>
> a) Two different kinds of schwa ?
>
> In my very native style of American English I fail to find this
> division into two different kinds of unstressed vowels Jorge
> mentions. For example, in "pallet" and "ballot" I pronounce everything
> the same except for the initial consonant (I would transcribe as /
> pal't, bal't /.  Is it a mere coincidence that, as far as I know,
> every case of this supposed high-front unstressed vowel corresponds to
> a syllable where the vowel is SPELLED with " i " or " e " ?

I think only some speakers make the distinction, and in only some words. It is
difficult/impossible to remove the influence of orthography from the speech of a
literate person. In my 'standard American' speech, there is little or no
distinction between the 'two schwas' ('pallet' rhymes with 'ballot' pretty well).
My Random House dictionary differentiates 'carat' [kar at t] from 'caret' [karIt], but
I think hardly any speaker does (if he can even remember which is which!). The
dictionary's pronunciations do not exactly parallel the spellings, however -- for
example, '-age' is given as [-ij] (or [-IdZ]) in such words as 'adage', 'message',
'visage'.

-  Doug Wilson


-------------------------------- Message 3 -------------------------------

Date:  Mon, 13 Mar 2000 21:06:04 -0500 (EST)
From:  kdcaldw at interserv.com
Subject:  Re: 11.542, Disc: Underlying Schwa?

I don't claim to have any great insight  into this, and I'll admit that a lot of the
discussion is over my head (I subscribe to this list mostly out of curiosity and to
learn a few things), but I thought perhaps I could contribute a few examples and
let others discuss them as to how they relate to the topic at hand:

calumny - calumnious
Malthus - Malthusian
autumn -  autumnal
ridiculous - ridicule

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