Re: THEORY: Ray on ambisyllabicity

Ray:
> And Rosta also wrote:
> [...]
> >Also:
> >
> >  hoe          [h@w]
> >  holy         [h@wli]   (/l/ only in 2nd syllable)
> >  whole, hole  [hOw]
> >  wholly       [hOwli]   (/l/ ambisyllabic, triggering vowel
> >                          allophone in 1st syllable)
>
> Very true.  _holy_ and _wholly_ are certain not homohones in SE English,
> whether 'demotic' or 'learned'.  Although I'm very familiar with the
> 'demotic' [w], and here it mny times every day, I (and my wife) use a
> velarized _l_ (SAMPA [5]); thus _holy_ is ['h@w.li], whereas _wholly_ is
> ['hO5.li].
I say ['hOU5li] for _wholly_ (and ['hOUli] for _holy_, but that's the
Australian in my accent), but the more usual pronunciation is ['hOUli].
Your (judging by your transcription) and my pronunciation has geminate
/ll/, but the more usual one doesn't, and hence is more relevant as
evidence for ambisyllabicity.

> I think the apparent 'ambisyllacity' of the _ll_ in the latter
> word (demotic [wl], 'learned' [5l]) is due to the bimorphemic nature of the
> word which, despite the conventional spelling, is being treated as
> "whole-ly" (indeed, the spelling _wholely_ in not unknown in 'substandard'
> writing).
Certainly the phonological contrast reflects the morphological structure of
the words, but this doesn't mean that the 'ambisyllabicity' is merely
apparent.

--And.