Re: Back to the Future (was: I'm back, sort of)

On Wed, 24 Sep 2003, Joe wrote:

> As well as this, I think /n=/ will become standard English for 'and'.  It's
> not like anyone really says /&nd/ anymore.
I'm sorry, and I don't mean this to be an EPT, and I fear the answer might
be something like 'it's just arbitrary', but is there any actual reason
for [n=] to sometimes be marked as /n=/? It seems to offer no real
advantage: I don't think there's any minimal pairs between [n=] and [@n],
for instance, and it's a treatment given only to some sounds (like word
final /@l/, /@n/). Perhaps it just _seems_ arbitrary to me because I can
optionally (and usually in normal speech) pronounce words like
'particular' or 'paramater' as [pt=Ikj@l@] and [pr\=&m@t@]?

--
Tristan                  <kesuari@...>

Yesterday I was a dog. Today I'm a dog. Tomorrow I'll probably still
be a dog. Sigh! There's so little hope for advancement.
                -- Snoopy

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