Re: Country Names -- Local Pronunciations

John Cowan:
> And Rosta scripsit:
>
> > As for [INgl] versus [INl], this is pretty much subject to idiolectal
> > variation among speakers who contrast [Ng] and [N] -- I for example
> > say [INl@n(d)] & am not unusual in this, though it is a minority
> > pronunciation. The phenomenon is not restricted to this word -- the
> > [g] deletes before sonorants in general, e.g. [laNwIdZ] v. [laNgwidZ]
> > -- I say the former & I guess Joe says the latter
>
> Damn it all to Hell, now I've been contaminated and don't know whether
> I have [Ng] or [N] in "England".  I somehow feel as if it's [N] in this
> particular word, though I certainly have [Ng] in "language" and "English"
The great linguist Haj Ross, a great inventor of terminology (him being
an artist who happened to have a surpassing talent for syntax), called
this phenomenon "scanting out", named as a result of trying to make
acceptability judgements about the word _scant_.

> Also, is "I guess" in the sense of "I suppose" reappearing in English
> English again after a 400-year hiatus?  When Gandalf uses it[1], it
> must have looked like a deliberate archaism, although it seems perfectly
> normal over here
>
> [1] "I guess they [Gollum's people] were of hobbit-kind; akin to the
> fathers of the fathers of the Stoors."  In a letter JRRT writes that by
> "I guess" Gandalf actually means "I deduce"
Off the top of my head, so without having studied it properly, my
answer is this. Firstly, British English is constantly importing
American influences. We continue to drift apart in accent, but in
grammar and vocabulary American gets imported here. And the accent
differences across the Atlantic are mostly no greater than what
we have within Britain, so AmE does not seem particularly alien.
Secondly, although it is true that AmE has "guess" where BrE has
"suppose" (or "spose"), for me they differ along the lines of the
core senses of the verbs. Specifically, although they do overlap,
"suppose" can involve a greater element of deduction ("In the absence
of evidence to the contrary, I conclude that"), whereas "guess" means
"guess", even if it is an informed guess. "I suppose", then, has a
slightly higher degree of confidence than "I guess". This contrast
does not in itself mean it's not an American influence: even if "I
guess" were borrowed, if it entered the language alongside "I suppose"
rather than replacing it, then it is to be expected that the
redundancy get exapted into a meaningful contrast.

--And.

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