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Re: USAGE: h&ppi? (was: RE: Importance of stress)

From:BP Jonsson <bpj@...>
Date:Wednesday, February 23, 2000, 13:03
At 07:04 +0100 21.2.2000, Raymond Brown wrote:
> >I hesitate between ['h&p.pi] and ['h&.pi] - but it seems to me that >['h&p.i] is incorrect syllabification for what I hear around me.
There are phonologists of English who have suggested that consonants may be ambisyllabic, i.e. closing one syllable and opening another at the same time! While I would not subscribe to that theory I can well think that when a language simplifies its geminates they may still be treated phonologically as geminates, although being phonetically non-geminate for some time. I would expect this "abstract geminateness" to disappear within the familiar third-generation limit, though. English de-gemination is far older than that, though it seems from your South Wales 'valleys' example that it may be different in some areas with a Welsh substrate, where gemination was probably introduced by first-generation English-speakers as a spelling pronunciation. Or is the /p/ of that pronunciation you are hesitant about aspirated? Perhaps [h&p_hi] has been re-interpreted as /h&p.hI/! Or it may have to do with the fact that the final /I/ is higher and tenser than medial and stressed /I/s, approaching the typical value of /i:/, so that for some speakers the final syllable has more (energetic) stress than for others. /BP B.Philip Jonsson <mailto: bpj@...> <mailto: melroch@...> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~__ Anant' avanaute quettalmar! \ \ __ ____ ____ _____________ ___ __ __ __ / / \ \/___ \\__ \ /___ _____/\ \\__ \\ \ \ \\ \ / / / / / / / \ / /Melroch\ \_/ // / / // / / / / /___/ /_ / /\ \ / /Melarocco\_ // /__/ // /__/ / /_________//_/ \_\/ /Eowine__ / / \___/\_\\___/\_\ I neer Pityancalimeo\ \_____/ /ar/ /_atar Mercasso naan ~~~~~~~~~Cuinondil~~~\_______/~~~\__/~~~Noolendur~~~~~~ || Lenda lenda pellalenda pellatellenda cuivie aiya! || "A coincidence, as we say in Middle-Earth" (JRR Tolkien)