Re: Idiolect Sound Change, or Broader Usage? n# > m#

David Peterson wrote:
> Hate to tell you this, but a friend of mine in the linguistics
> department down here, born and bred in Texas, has this sound
> change, and it's allegedly a common feature of Texas English.
> I can't comment on the specifics--he just told me about it the
> other day--but the word "button" was mentioned specifically.
Many things are alleged about Texans, but only some of
them are true.  I lived there for the first 22 years of
my life, and can assure you that it is not remotely
as common as you suggest it is.  What *is* marginally
common is the complete deletion of nasals in some
syllable-final environments, while leaving behind
nasalized vowels.  I associate this particularly with
parts of East Texas and the Gulf Coast, which if true
may result from Cajun French influence as a kind of
substrate.

Of course, most Texans do say "y'all", but that is only
because that is the second-person plural pronoun of choice
for all Right Thinking People.  8P

Patrick Littel wrote:
> Someone who speaks Portuguese might be able to comment.  Consider the
> alternation "homem" ~ "homens", in which the word-final /n/ in *homen
> becomes [m]  (I dunno whether synchronically or diachronically.)
I don't speak Portuguese, but I wrote a bookreview about a survey
of Portuguese phonology about a year ago.  I don't think you can
read much into the spelling of word-final <m> like that, since it is
one of the (purely orthographic) ways to indicate nasalization on a
preceding vowel, along with the tilde, and <n> generally isn't, IIRC.

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Thomas Wier	       "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
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