Re: [Re: [IE conlangs]]

On Mon, 12 Apr 1999, Tom Wier wrote:

> Padraic Brown wrote:
>
> > On Mon, 12 Apr 1999, John Cowan wrote:
> >
> > > Nik Taylor wrote:
> > >
> > > > Those two being homophones in Southern American English, /bIn/, of
> > > > course.  :-)
> > >
> > > In all U.S. Englishes, I think, except perhaps Eastern New England.
> >
> > If the originals were "been" and "bin", then they aren't, generally,
> > homophones here in Md.  Mostly, the one sounds like /bEn/ the other /bIn/.
> > I think I've got that right.
>
> Which is why Nik originally said that they're homophones in Southern
> American English, because /E/ just doesn't exist before nasals, except
> as an allophonic variant of /&/.  (Pronouncing a full /&/ before nasals
> sounds positively foreign to me! :) )
Er.  Right.  Well, Nik said they were homophones in Southern, John thinks
they're homophones in all, except NE.  Md. is only _barely_ Southern, and
certainly not NE.  That's why I's saying they _aren't_ here; where we
seemingly go against the rest of the country.

I may have gotten the symbols wrong, though.  For the first, I want a
short 'eh'; for the other a short 'ih'.

Padraic.

>
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> Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
> ICQ#: 4315704   AIM: Deuterotom
> Website: <http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
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>
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