(Warning: DEP) vowel to velar offglide (was Re: Paxba-Sazena Lexicon in developement

Rachel Klippenstein wrote:
> Do voiced velars tend to cause an i-type off-glide on
> a preceding voewl?  I think I may have one in leg - it
> doesn't sound like quite the same vowel as in ten pr
> bed or peck, and more definitely, I have an i-like
> off-glide after & (=ae digraph) before [g] and [N], so
> I have a different vowel in bag and bang (something
> like [&I] or [&i] than in back or bad (just plain
> [&]).  (My brother even tends to say these with a
> vowel something like [eI], so bag is for him [beIg]
>
Yes. You're likely to get a transitional vowel sound any time the tongue has
to move from one extreme position to another, as from low front [&] to
bunched-up-in-back [g]. Also, the fact that Engl.stressed vowels are
lengthened before voiced final consonants abets this, and in a sense the
glide-vowel is substituting for part of the length-- so you don't hear much
of a glide before a final k. Your particular examples suggest there may be a
little Southern-US influence; is that possible?

The exact quality of the glide probably depends on the individual;
personally, I have more of a schwa-glide in the case of [...&g]-- but like
you, an i-glide in [...&N].  Here the front & causes the N to move forward
to a position very similar to [i] or [I] (contrast "bong"-- no glide,
because the tongue only moves slightly up from low back [O] to [N] and the N
is a true velar, much further back than in "bang").

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