Re: USAGE: [YAEPT] (was Re: "To whom")

Tristan McLeay <conlang@...> wrote:
> Muke Tever is responsible for:
>> Tristan McLeay <conlang@...> wrote:
>>> I don't know that the glottal stop is phonemic (and I've heard
>>> evidence
>>> that the phoneme for US [4] is actually /t/, so 'meddle' and 'mettle'
>>> are both homophones as (what I suppose is) /mEtl=/, contrary to
>>> intuition).
>>
>> What's the evidence for making it /t/?  Usually it's described as part
>> of the /d/ phoneme, as they still contrast before /n=/:
>>     mitten /mItn=/ (probably [mIt_}n=] or [mi?n=])
>>     midden /mIdn=/ (maybe [mi4n=], but probably [mId_}n=])
>
> Well, personally I think I usually pronounce those the same, but I
> don't speak American English so it's not really relevant :) (In any
> case, I tend to pronounce syllabic consonants as [@C] (where C is the
> consonant, so there's plenty of space to avoid a glottal stop
(Curiously, in Americanese, before syllabic 'n' is one of the places
where the glottal stop is *most* likely to appear.)

> Let me scour the Internet... I think I've heard something else before,
> but I have this:
>    http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001819.html
> not really proper, scientific evidence but still at least an argument
> or two. I'm not sure if the authors of such things consider words like
> 'mitten'.
Hmm, interesting.  I wonder what would happen if you gave those literate
adults unfamiliar or nonsense words with [4] in them.

I retain a suspicion that in at least some cases the [4] is more
aspirated than others, in which case a [4_h] would represent an
underlying /t_h/, and the [4] an underlying /d/, but in usual
practice I consider the tap part of /d/ and just have done with it :p

	*Muke!
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