Re: American Speech Habits

Emily Zilch wrote:
> i conlanged a bit on another list ages ago (for the Blue Planet RPG)
> about the future of English. One of the changes was a (multistage)
> modification of the stop system from [+/- voice] > [+/- aspirate], with
> the first step already heavily underway: the loss of distinction in
> voicing in intervocalic and coda position, most commonly seen in my
> complete inability to distinguish -t-/-d- ("kiddy" & "kitty" are
> identical, Sid-y ["like Sid"] and city, etc.). (Later interference from
> Asian speakers plus a natural change in the language made initials be
> identified by aspiration.)
Some would argue that most dialects of English are already primarily
aspirate-based.  :-)

In one con-future English of mine, I had a threeway /t~d~t_h/
distinction evolve, via loss of initial s-, thus:

kill ->  /k_hIl/
skill -> /kIl/
gill ->  /gIl/

Of course, initial s- remained in the orthography as the marker of
unaspirated unvoiced stop.  :-)

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