LL-L "Grammar" 2005.12.21 (03) [E]

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21 December 2005 * Volume 03
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From: Steven Hanson <hanayatori at sbcglobal.net>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar"


Ben Bloomgren said:
"You know, I don't believe that I have ever heard anyone say, "I hav to go"
with a /v/ in "have." I think that it is more universal than just the
midwest, as I live in Arizona and have heard this from people in many
places."

That's quite interesting.

Yasuji Waki said:
"When I learned English at high school( of course in Japan), I was taught:

'have' should be read as 'haff' in such usage: I have to go to school. Of
course, 'have' to be read as 'hav' in case that it means " to possess".

I am not sure, if what I have learned is correct."

It fascinates me that your high school class went into detail on the 
pronunciation of "have" in it's various aspects.  As far as I can recall, 
none of my classes ever mentioned pronunciation one way or the other.  It's 
always been something learned from imitation.

As far as whether or not what you've learned is correct, I'd say that more 
and more people are leaning towards descriptivism, rather than 
prescriptivism, so I think you don't have anything to worry about.  :-)

Ingmar Roerdinkholder said:
"Just as <s> won't be pronounced as [z] before voiceless
consonants: in "it is terrible", normal pronunciation of <is> [Iz],
becomes [Is]. In normal speech no one would say haV to or iZ terrible.
But I expected that to be common knowledge here..."

I'm sure it is common knowledge that sounds change given their environment. 
But in this case, it doesn't apply because practice dictates otherwise, at 
least in the speech of some of us.  Never would I say [Is] terrible.  [iZ] 
terrible is the only way that would come out of my mouth.  In fact, simple 
little things like a "misplaced" unvoiced consonant have led me to say to 
some people, "You've got a bit of an accent, where are you from?"  :-)

Leslie Decker said:
"I chalked it up to
the difference that someone else mentioned:  one was related to 'hoeven'
in Dutch, and one to 'hebben,' although I admit I've been too lazy to
research it properly. :-)  However, I was just thinking about
substituting 'have got to' for 'have to,' in which the end consonant is
voiced, and now I'm not so sure about anything.  Is that voiced because
it's underlyingly voiced, or because of assimlation with the /g/, or
because of analogy with with 'have got' meaning 'possess' or 'have
received?'"

I find the parallelism between 'have to' and 'hoeven (te)' fairly striking, 
and actually I was hoping when I first mentioned it that someone might have 
a bit more information to share about it.  Even the usage of 'must' fits 
neatly with the Dutch counterpart:  Ik moet brood kopen. - I must buy bread. 
In both examples 'to' or 'te' is absent.  However, we then have:  Ik hoef 
appels niet te kopen. - I don't have to buy apples.  That is if I'm 
remembering my Dutch well enough.  :-)

As far as 'have got' is concerned, I've always thought of that as the 
present perfect tense of 'to get'.  If I'm not mistaken, in some forms of 
British English, 'got' is more common than 'gotten' as a past participle.  I 
actually use 'got' when saying 'have got' instead of plain 'have', but I say 
'gotten' in other present perfect situations.  So, I'd say something like 
"I've got three sheets of paper here."  To me this is identical to "I have 
three sheets of paper here."  But, I'd say something like "It took me a 
while, but I've really gotten used to getting up early."

Steven Hanson

----------

From: Justin Renquist <justinrenquist at hotmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2005.12.20 (07) [E]


Ingmar was indeed incorrect on this account. One would *never* pronounce in 
standard native English "it isss terrible", only "it iz terrible" is 
possible. However as noted, if you shorten to "it's" then the s sound always 
remains "ss" regardless of what follows. The word "is" (he is, she is, it 
is) in English can *never* be pronounced "iss."

This voiced/unvoiced s sound (knowing which one to use) is a common mistake 
made by non-native speakers of English, but I have found it especially 
prevalent amongst Dutch speakers of English - and I think this is because 
the "s" sound in Dutch is somewhat blurrier than in English (Dutch unvoiced 
s sounds sometimes a bit like approaching English "sh" to my ear, and 
sometimes even a bit voiced like zsh).

This is no cruel criticism of Dutch speakers of English, only a liguistic 
observation. I wish I could speak Dutch even half as well as most Dutch 
people speak English! :>

----------

From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <ingmar.roerdinkholder at WORLDONLINE.NL>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2005.12.20 (07) [E]

 I didn't say no one CAN pronounce haV to or iZ terrible, of course they
can, and if you try to do that to show it's possible  you'll certainly
succeed.
However, I think if you'd listen to a recording of normal, daily speech,
you'd hear iS terrible and haF to with nearly all or all English
speakers...
The thing is that people reading about this subject will try to pronounce
those two isolated words carefully and that is quite possible, just as
saying haD to with a D, but I really can't believe anyone would say
anything else than hat-to ("H{t:u:] in normal speech.
But I'm no native English speaker of course, not even fluent in it, so
who knows...
Regards, Ingmar
>
>From: Kevin and Cheryl Caldwell <kevin.caldwell1963 at verizon.net>
>_No one_ would say that? I say it (iZ terrible, that is) - devoicing
the /s/
>in "is" just sounds weird to this native English speaker (however, when
you
>say it as "that's" it is always devoiced no matter what the next sound
is).
>I also only say /haf to/ in the sense of must. When I say something
like "I
>have two of those," (even with the emphasis on "have") the /v/ is voiced.
>Again, I make the /v/ voiceless only in the expression "have to" meaning
>"must".

----------

From: Gary Taylor <gary_taylor_98 at yahoo.com>
Subject: LL-L Phonology

Hi All

I think a lot of what's being said about haVe or haff
is more to do with confusion over what people _think_
they say versus what they actually say. When people
are speaking they automatically  employ certain
phonological and morphological processes. Devoicing of
the v of 'have to' to f before the following voiceless
t is a natural process at least in standard dialects -
there may be dialects where this is not the case, but
in standard Englishes this is so. People however tend
to be very influenced by spellings, which is why
people think they use a voiced v. This is indeed
displayed in very careful speech, where spelling
pronunciations tend to come more to the fore.

I can rememeber when taking my TESOL exam there was a
girl who was dismayed at having to teach learners that
'was' in the majority of cases is pronounced /w at z/ and
not 'woz'. This is a natural process for English
speakers, so we don't tend to notice ourselves doing
it, however learners need to learn 'English' natural
processes as theirs will differ. If you're a
non-native English speaker I would stick with the
process changing 'have to' into 'haff to' as this
sounds more natural and not forced.

I would also argue this case with the 'could of/have'
debate. Sticking to 'could have' is sticking to a
written form, as if this is sacrosanct, whereas a
written form should portray the way a language is
spoken and not the other way round.

Gary

http://hometown.aol.com/taylor16471/myhomepage/index.html

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