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

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.

YHL