Re: THEORY: free variation [was: Re: [OT] Re: Conlangea Dreaming]

Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
>On Wed, 11 Oct 2000, Marcus Smith wrote:
>
> > >On Wed, 11 Oct 2000, Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
> > >
> > > > <bewildered look>  What's free variation?
> > >
> > Why go all the way to Shoshoni? We have examples of it in English as well.
> > For instance, "envelope" can be pronounced as [Env@lop] or [anv@lop]. Then
> > there's the famous [tometo] vs. [tomato] song, extendable to [poteto] vs.
> > [potato].
>
>I won't get in on the discussion, but I've known occasional people who
>used [tometo] and [tomato] interchangeably.  Not many, though.  I've also
>flip-flopped between "either" with /i/ and "either" with /aI/ in the past.
Yes, I do that too. It is the only pronunciation where I've had customers
in a store correct my pronunciation. Very odd that they would choose that
contrast over something else.


>YHL


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Marcus Smith
AIM:  Anaakoot
"When you lose a language, it's like
dropping a bomb on a museum."
   -- Kenneth Hale
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