Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

YAEPT: Voiceless TH in whether, worthy

From:Jonathan Knibb <jonathan_knibb@...>
Date:Saturday, November 11, 2006, 13:27
H. S. Teoh wrote:
> It may be a British thing.
FWIW, I've lived in central and southern England all my life and cannot recall ever hearing voiceless [T] in 'weather', 'whether' or 'worthy', at least not in a standard southern British accent. The online OED agrees. I can't speak for other British accents, though (no pun intended). In fact, the only (synchronically) monomorphemic words the OED can find ending with /-T@/ in standard British English are 'author', 'naphtha' and 'panther', and perhaps 'ether' and 'plaza'. More could be coined by adding '-er' to a word ending in '-th' ('frother'), and there's always Bertha and Merthyr (with apologies to Welsh speakers). Jonathan. ==

Reply

Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>