Re: OT: YAEPT: English low vowels (was briefly: Re: Y/N variants (< OT: English a...
| From: | Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Thursday, December 13, 2007, 22:25 |
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On Dec 13, 2007 3:16 PM, <MorphemeAddict@...> wrote:
> In a message dated 12/13/2007 2:56:07 AM Central Standard Time,
> ray@CAROLANDRAY.PLUS.COM writes:
>
> > We are aware that American LOT & THOUGHT generally have the same, or
> > similar vowel, to our PALM; but we 'hear' that as the American way of
> >
>
> I say LOT and THOUGHT with quite different vowels, but I'm not sure how to
> write them.
Right. Not all Americans have the LOT/THOUGHT merger, not even those who
have the PALM/LOT merger. This is why there are so dadgum many lexical sets
in Wells's list; i'm almost certain that no single dialect distinguishes all
of them.
It's also why the quote above was qualified with "generally", which means "I
know this isn't a universal truth, no need to supply counterexamples." :)
--
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
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