Re: YEAPT: f/T (was Re: Other Vulgar Latins?)

On 2/22/06, Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> wrote:
> I have a very lax, almost schwalike, [I] for both of those -
I've heard this sound called "schwi". (And I think I have it in
"enthuse" and "inthuse" as well -- or in other, similar unstressed
syllables.)



On 2/22/06, Tristan Alexander McLeay <conlang@...> wrote:
> On 22/02/06, Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> wrote:
> > On 2/21/06, Tristan Alexander McLeay <conlang@...> wrote:
> > > > > infuse enthuse
> > > I would consider them to be /Infju\:s/ vs /InTu\:s/ (with /fj/ vs /T/).
> >
> > Oh, good point.  I missed that.  I suppose some 'lects must have /Tju/
> > in the latter, but not mine.
(Mine does, FWIW.)

> I think it dies at the same time as /lj/ and /sj/ mostly do, so I'd
> guess that conservative RP has it, but younger forms don't. Still,
> having no idea what the word "thews" in the original list means, I
> would read it as /Tju\:z/, which I have no problem saying, versus some
> difficulty with word-initial [lj]
*nods*

[lu:d] is easier to say for me than (what feels the most "correct" for
my 'lect) [lju:d], for example.

> and an almost automatic change of
> attempted [sj]->[S].
Word-initial only, or everywhere? Do you say [aSu:m], for example, for
<assume>? What about <suit> -- [su:t], [sju:t] or [Su:t]?

> One of the distinctions between SE England + SAfE, AusE, NZE dialects
> and most of the rest is that in the latter set, an EMnE /a/ (as it
> "at") was lengthened before /f T s/ and was retracted (or at least
> wasn't fronted) so that it's now quantitively and qualitively distinct
> from the short a (called "the trap-bath split").
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_English_short_A
, which describes the situation in various places, as well as giving
examples of words which have similar structure but where only one of
each pair shifted the vowel.

> [fwiw, I grew up in a working-class suburb, but went to highschool in
> a posh but state school so I never know how to say "castle"...])
Why, with [A:], of course :) *g*

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>

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