Talk:Phonological history of English consonant clusters/Archive 1

Sources for retained kn- and wr-

I'm skeptical of there being dialects of modern English that retain /kn-/ in knock, knee, and /vr-/ in write, wrought, especially considering that Scots is generally considered a separate language, not a dialect of English. Two sources were cited for these: http://www.uni-mainz.de/FB/Philologie-II/fb1413/roesel/seminar0203/regional_varieties/Scotland.htm and http://www1.uni-hamburg.de/peter.siemund/Articles/English%20(Variationstypologie).pdf. Unfortunatley the first of these is no longer available (404 error) and the second doesn't seem reliable to me. For one thing, the author doesn't cite his sources; for another, he doesn't seem to recognize the distinction between Scottish English and Scots language. --Angr (t·c) 10:20, 25 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think know should be listed as an example of kn- n- merger because of the vowel difference. --belg4mit 2006-01-03

Wine-whine merger

I've removed wine-whine merger from the h-cluster reductions, because the merging of /w/ and /W/ (as opposed to /w/ and /hw/) is not a reduction. 64.194.44.220 22:59, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that's one opinion. Another is that no English dialect has a phoneme /ʍ/ at all, but that some have the sequence /hw/ which is phonetically realized as [ʍ]. The name was originally Glide cluster reduction, which is Wells's name for the two mergers /hw/ -> /w/ and /hj/ -> /j/ together. Somewhere along the line someone decided that the medieval sound changes /hl, hn, hr/ -> /l, n, r/ needed to be discussed here too, and changed the name accordingly. --Angr (t·c) 23:52, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

If one's going to say that, then they might as well also say that no one has a /S/ phoneme, but that everyone has the sequence /hs/ which is phonetically realized as [S]. It's no more silly than saying that those people have the sequence /hw/ which is phonetically realized as [W]. Of course, saying either one of those is silly. 64.194.44.220 00:04, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Besides the fact that English does allow similar combinations like /sw/ and /hj/, but clusters of two fricatives are rare and non-syllable-initial /h/ is nonexistent? You'll find that analyses like this are already in use, for example in Japanese phonology where [tS] and [S] are considered /tj/ and /sj/, so if you think it's silly, you've got a long way to go to convince the rest of the linguistic community.

I've heard that initial wh is actually realized phonetically as [hw] or [hW] for some speakers, anyway. --Ptcamn 04:39, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It's the distribution of [ʍ] that leads to the suspicion it's actually /hw/: like other rising-sonority clusters, it can only appear in syllable onsets, not syllable codas. Like /h/, it cannot appear before a syllable that is both unstressed and noninitial. [ʃ] does not have these restrictions, so its distribution does not indicate an underlying structure /hs/. --Angr (t·c) 07:28, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Accordingly I've moved it back. Even if you consider there to be a phoneme /W/, at least from an historical point of view this /W/ will have evolved from /hw/. Besides, it makes the article tidier to have it this way. Jimp 15:29, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The section disappeared mysteriously in a "minor"-marked edit by DecGon on 17-Feb-2006. Should it be there or not? Note that the section is referenced by General American, and it is pretty well documented, so perhaps it should just be put back and left at that. --Todd Vierling 18:39, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

He moved it to Phonological history of English consonants, which is where Wine-whine merger now redirects to. But a link to English consonant cluster reductions#Wine-whine merger won't work anymore. Angr (talk • contribs) 19:30, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

who?

from article:

"Dictionaries usually transcribe the sound of the wh in words like whine in accents without the merger as /hw/, but some phonologists think that /ʍ/ would be a better representation of the sound."

whose analyses are these? thanks. peace – ishwar (speak) 17:00, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've added an IPA template to your post, Ishwar. I hope you don't mind. Jimp 01:38, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Moved from Talk:Yod-dropping

Historical pronunciation

Does anyone have any reference that suggests that the yod-ful pronunciations of some of these words are historically prior to the "dropped" pronunciations? It strikes me that the article is actually saying that only a handful of dialects in the British Isles use them.

Some of the alleged historical pronunciations would appear to violate basic constraints of English phonology. "After / ɹ/: rude, rule, true, and threw are pronounced [ ɹu:d], [ ɹu:l], [t ɹu:] and [ θ ɹu:] instead of [ɹju:d], [ ɹju:l], [t ɹju:] and [ θ ɹju:]." Were a yod present in these words, they would acquire a second syllable.

I would call nonsense on the whole thing, but for the fact that my own speech has an echo of some of this. I do not have /ju:/ in any of these words, but in many of them I have /y:/ where this article suggests /ju:/: /ny:/ new, /ty:n/ tune, /y:s/ or /jy:s/ use and so forth. There may be something to this, but as it stands I am not sure. -- Smerdis of Tlön 15:11, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

If you look at Kenyon & Knott's Pronouncing Dictionary of American English you will see descriptions of accents where pairs like "rude"/"rood", "chews"/"choose", and even "yew"/"you" are distinct. But where they are distinct, the first members of each set are pronounced with the diphthong [ɪu], not with [ju]. It's also common for people with accents like yours to distinguish "lute" [lʉt] from "loot" [lut]. (I've never heard that the vowel is as far forward as [y], as you transcribed it.) --Angr 09:06, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

cleanup tag

I've added the {{cleanup}} tag to this article because of the recent additions. Someone needs to go through and add links to things that have Wikipedia articles, remove mentions of maps that aren't here, add references for ANAE, PEAS, LAMSAS, Jespersen, etc., and generally change what smells strongly of a copyvio from another site (though I can't find where it comes from) into a Wikipedia article. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 15:46, 30 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I found the site: it was a copyvio from http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phonoatlas/Atlas_chapters/Ch8/Ch8.html, so I just deleted it. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 18:21, 30 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Matthew

AxSkov, do you really pronounce Matthew [mæˈθjuː] with the stress on the second syllable? I've only ever heard ˈmæθju, with the stress on the first syllable. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 11:22, 3 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Zeus

I changed the page to say that the yod in the word "Zeus" is dropped only in North American English, but Angr changed it back again, saying that yod dropping after /z/ is heard among some RP speakers too. I haven't heard this, and I'm interested - comments anyone? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hughcharlesparker (talk • contribs) 08:54, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

My source is John C. Wells's book Accents of English (p. 207), where he writes: "In RP there is variability in the environment of a preceding /θ, s, z, l/, as in /ɪnˈθ(j)uːzɪæzm̩/, /s(j)uːt/, /rɪˈz(j)uːm/, /l(j)uːd/ lewd". --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 11:26, 25 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I speak Australian Eng. & pronounce no [j] in "Zeus". Jimp 15:02, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

In The Oxford English Dictionary it is pronounced as (zjuːs) though. Artur Buchhorn 22:56, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm an RP-speaker, and I've never heard yod-dropping in either ‘Zeus’ or ‘enthusiasm’ from another RP-speaker. Again, the OED agrees. Additionally, ‘enthusiasm’ is usually pronounced with an /ɛ/. Twey (talk) 17:56, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Angr must have the pin-pen merger like me then. It causes many screw ups. Thegryseone (talk) 18:03, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I copied Wells's transcription of the word, not my own. And enthusiasm is only pronounced with an /ɛ/ if you put special emphasis on that syllable. In ordinary, casual speech it would be reduced to /ɪ/ or /ə/. +An gr 18:07, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I see. That makes sense, because it's an unstressed syllable. However, for people who have the pin-pen merger it would always be /ɪ/. Thegryseone (talk) 18:24, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Matthew

(an exception to this is the name Matthew [ˈmæθjuː])

I don't think is a real exception. Isn't it due to the stress? --Ptcamn 07:57, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think is a real exception either but I think it's due to syllable division, i.e. [ˈmæθ.juː], like volume. Jimp 15:29, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You're both right. It has that syllable division because of the stress, and it's no different from volume. I'm removing it. --Angr (t·c) 15:35, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Moved from Talk:Final consonant cluster reduction

Thanks for adding sources. Unfortunately, http://www.rehabmed.ualberta.ca/spa/phonology/features.html doesn't work for me (I get "The page cannot be found", but I'll try again later in case it's just temporarily broken). And http://www.indiana.edu/~hlw/PhonProcess/accents.html discusses the dropping of final consonants, but does not discuss the aspect I actually wanted sources for, the claim the the plural of tes' is tesses. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 05:49, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I found the link. It's at http://www.rehabmed.ualberta.ca/spa/phonology/Features.html with a capital F. And it doesn't discuss plurals like tesses either. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 05:56, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, here are two sources that do discuss plurals like tesses http://courses.essex.ac.uk/lg/lg449/AAVEfeatureList.htm and http://www.stanford.edu/~rickford/ebonics/EbonicsExamples.html. I've added them to the sources list. 64.200.124.189 23:32, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Acronym usage

The usage of AAVE and African American Vernacular English aren't consistent/in good form, requesting fixage Dextrose (talk) 05:07, 4 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

{{Sofixit}}. ;-) —An gr 05:31, 4 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yod-coalescence

The word "associate" and its variants puzzle me because of the difference between /əˈsoʊʃieɪt/ and /əˈsoʊsieɪt/. Does anybody else see the first pronounciation as redundant? I could imagine that /əˈsoʊsieɪt/ would be conservative, then there may be a reduction of the third vowel cluster to /əˈsoʊsjeɪt/, and finally a coalescence to /əˈsoʊʃeɪt/; so wouldn't /əˈsoʊʃieɪt/ be a repetition of a coalesced yod?

Two points/questions

Yod-coalescence: I don't see sj -> ʒ, as in "resume" (I think most australians pronounce it that way).

Actually, looking closer, the examples are unrepresentative: 4 examples of tj, 3 of dj, and none of sj or zj. Stevage 17:45, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yod-dropping: On unstressed syllables, it's more prevalent, right? Again in Australian english, manufacture becomes "nə" rather than "nju". Is this a case of yod-dropping or something else again?

Anyway, I didn't see either of those things there. Not an expert, so would prefer someone else to address them if relevant. Stevage 17:25, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just a comment, that would actually be zj > ʒ since the "s" in resume is voiced for all dialects (as far as I'm aware of). — Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:14, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Err, yes. Anyway I've made the changes I suggested, got someone to check them for me. Stevage 04:40, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yod-dropping section

The article appears to imply that yod-dropping is universal or near universal in General American. However, my impression listening to the news in the U.S. is that a reasonably large proportion of journalists (who in other respects are GA speakers) do not drop yods, larger than would be suggested by the map anyway. I myself am a yod-keeper, but I'm Canadian, hence not a speaker of GA.

I don't know if you can simply deduce from the map that yod-keeping is not an option in GA. It may be a phenomenon something like RP in Britain, in the sense that you can't point to a decent-sized geographic area in England where RP speakers are in the majority, yet the accent is very prominent in the media.

I think that Canadian and American yod-keepers should be given a fuller description. In particular, the environments in which North Americans keep yods are not the same as for Britons. North Americans seldom pronounce lewd the way Britons do, and generally drop yods after s and z as well (except in a few words like assume and resume). On the other hand, North American yod-keepers do not drop yods after n, d, t and th.

In particular, I would question the assertion in the article that a significant number of Southerners in the U.S. pronounce lewd the way Britons do. This is quite a different matter from dew/do.

I don't have a reference for this at the moment, but I seem to remember that the environments in which North Americans keep yods are mentioned in the front matter in Merriam-Webster dictionaries, of which I don't have any available. One would expect some of this information, as well as information about the extent of yod-dropping in Canada, to be available in the Atlas of North American English too, but unfortunately I don't have access to that either.

It would be good if someone could check the sources to verify whether the assertions in the article are overstatements. 82.124.231.186 (talk) 22:36, 30 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]