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Re: NATLANGS: Difthongization across Europa

From:ROGER MILLS <rfmilly@...>
Date:Monday, February 18, 2008, 22:56
David Peterson wrote:
>I wonder if the pre-GVS change of &: A: > E: O: in English went >thru this stage too, seeing that they're spelled <ea oa>? > >> > >The former is happening/happens in my English before nasals: > >bag = [b&:g] >bad = [b&:d] >ban = [bean]
It's surprising that, for you, only nasals are involved. And maybe only /n/?? I find this rather curious-- the raising of low vowels before final voiced stops, /r/ and /n/ (not sure about /-z/) was studied in NY/Phila speech by Labov in the 60s or maybe 70s. When I lived in NYC 1960-64 I sure heard it-- bed and bad, sure and shore, bag and beg, can and Ken etc. were very nearly rhymes!! (IIRC it started before dentals, then spread. We've discussed this before, and there's a website about it somewhere.....). What's curious is, Conventional Wisdom has many modern American sound changes starting in California, then spreading to the rest of the country-- mostly via the younger generation. Because of pop music, Hollywood stars etc?? Who knows. If you're any example, this is a case of East >> West. How about your contemporaries, or teen-agers?
> >I've noticed a similar thing with the back vowels, but haven't >subjected them to experimentation the way I did with the front >vowels: > >bog = [bA:g] >bod = [bA:d] >bomb = [bO@m]
Sounds like maybe a DJP quirk :-))) How about Tom, CD-Rom? (not too many exs. of /CAm/) YAEPT ALERT!! How about "balm"? I have [A:] in all these, and pronounce the /l/ in balm.
>For an example of the front vowels, at least, listen to any song >by Snoop Dogg where he says "damn" (comes out sounding >like "day-am"). I'm not aware of it having been reported for >English outside of southern California, but no one seems to be >looking. >
That's just the plain old Southern drawl, probably in most AAVE too. Making it 2 syllables is just for emphasis. Same with [Si:.It]. Again, I heard plenty of both in Army days (56-59) stationed in Ga. and SC (ugh)-- we Yankees found these quite quaint but effective nonetheless, and it turned out they were also widely used by most GIs old and young everywhere.... and probably still are.

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David J. Peterson <dedalvs@...>