Re: English diglossia (was Re: retroflex consonants)
| From: | James Landau <neurotico@...> |
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| Date: | Sunday, February 2, 2003, 10:03 |
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In a message dated 2/1/2003 7:10:01 PM Pacific Standard Time,
cowan@MERCURY.CCIL.ORG writes:
> James Landau scripsit:
>
> > Let's see . . . young, southern . . . rough, tough, enough . . . have I
> > gotten them all . . . touch . . . trouble, double, no wait, you already
> have
> > "double". Douglas fir, if eponyms count, and couple. And moustache. I
> guess
> > you could say we have at least a dozen.
>
> RI treats "ough" as a separate case from "ou", since the variability is
> much higher, and there are many more cases (about 9 different
> pronunciations
> of "ough" altogether). However, it's a rule of RI that "gh" is always
> ignored in pronunciation after a vowel, so "ou" and "ough" are pronounced
> the same way, viz. the long sound of "o".
>
So that leaves us with "double", "country", "cousin", "young", "southern",
"touch", "trouble", "couple", "moustache" and perhaps "Douglas fir". That
would make an even 10. Not allowing "ough" takes "through" off my 25-word
list . . . I was thinking earlier today of "caribou" . . . maybe we can stick
"caribou" in there instead to keep it at 25. Or "marabou" :)