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

(Firstly... I'm currently using Gmail. I think some people said here
they'd stopped adding Reply-To: or something... But it seems they
still are. Is there some way to stop it, or only over-ride it, which
I'm currently doing when sending from my conlang account?)

(Apologies to Mark, who make get two or more copies of some of this
email due to forgetfulness on my part.)

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.
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] and an almost automatic change of
attempted [sj]->[S]. Possibly because the only common words (that I
can think of) with earlier /Tju:/ is "enthuse"/"enthusiasm" and
related ones.

> (Do you really have /s/ instead of /z/ at the end of those, or was that a typo?)
Typo.

On 22/02/06, Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> wrote:
> On 2/21/06, Paul Bennett <paul-bennett@...> wrote:
> > On Tue, 21 Feb 2006 16:43:24 -0500, Keith Gaughan <kmgaughan@...>
> > wrote:
> >
> > >> half hearth
> > >
> > > I don't know any dialect of English where these two are a minimal pair,
> > > rhotic or non-rhotic.
> >
> > I have /hAf/ ~ /hAT/. In non-careful enough speech, I can have /A:f/ for
> > both of them.
I'm not sure what the distinction you're trying to draw between /A:/
and /A/ is, Paul. Could you elaborate, or is it just a typo/thinko?

> Even if I spoke non-rhotically, that would make it /h&f/-/hAT/.
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"at") was lengthened before /f T s/ and was retracted (or at least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"). In all of them but
AusE, it also occurred before /m n/+C where C is a limited subset of
consonants (tho AusE also has /a:/ in "aunt" and "can't", and in many
other words is possible but not necessarily common, see the thing on
"castle" below). The change was irregular so that "mass" /m&s/ and
"pass" /pa:s/ don't rhyme. Syllable structure is relevant.

(It might be interesting to note that London dialects like EE and
Cockney have /A:/ before /m n/+C that AusE doesn't have, so when such
people say things like "dahnce" [dA:ns] it sounds really odd to me. A
bizarre addition of an upperclass feature to a classless or lowerclass
dialect.)

Some eastern American dialects also have (had?) the change
particularly in eastern New England. I think under the influence of
the GAmE, the set of words has shrunk. In New York City & Philidelphia
English a related change has occurred so that a "tense short a"
(something like [e@] I think) exists in these words as well as before
voiced stops & fricatives and nasals generally; but not in strong
verbs. In that regards, it's the union of the above change as well as
a second lengthening phenomenon (called the "bad-lad split") in some
dialects (like AusE, Estuary English, some RP); the exact distribution
of this one differs in every dialect that has it.

(tables like fixed-width fonts)

                        NYCE PhilE AusE  RP#
castle/graph^           &    &     &/a:  A:
pass/path* (fTs)        E@   E@    a:    A:
half/halve (-alf/-alve) E@   E@    a:    A:
can't/aunt^             E@   E@    a:    A:
dance* (nm + C)         E@   E@    &:/a: A:
fan/lamb (nm)           E@   E@    &:    &
bad/glad/mad/(sad)^     E@   E@    &:    &
bag (g)                 E@   &     &:    &
stab/lad/badge% (bddZ)  E@   &     &     &

* -> irregular split only (i.e. specific words with no rhyme
     or reason, versus the regular ones where exceptions have
     patterns or grammatical/syllabic reasons for not splitting)
^ -> more or less only the words listed
# -> varieties without the bad/lad split, as it's called,
     obviously; those with it look like AusE but don't have "bag"
% -> I would say at least in some varities of Melburnian English,
     "badge" words are at least beginning to split into the /&:/ set

(table adapted from an unpublished article on this that I've got my hands on)

(The "castle" set is interesting---in Australia, a handful of words
like "castle", "graph" have a socially-relevant split so that
pronunciations like /ka:s@l/ and /gra:f/ have been favored by the sort
of people who live in expensive suburbs, and pronunciations like
/k&s@l/ and /gr&f/ by the sort who live in working-class suburbs.
(It's stereotyped as a regional thing but such stereotypes never work
out properly. Melburnians think Sydneysiders say /gra:f/, and
Brisbanites & Sydneysiders think Melburnians say /gra:f/...) However,
what's interesting is that apparently more-or-less this same set of
words have /A:/ in England, but /&/ in American (splitting) dialects.
[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"...])

--
Tristan.

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