Re: Spelling pronunciations (was: rhotic miscellany)

Muke Tever wrote:

> Tristan Mc Leay <conlang@...> wrote:
>
>> ISTR some American dialects also have /wVt/ for 'what'.
>
>
> I think that's _most_ American dialects.  Er, what vowel do your people
> put in it?

Short o (i.e. /O/); 'what' rhymes with 'cot' and 'lot', but not with
'hut' (/a/, equiv. to /V/) or 'bought' (/o:/).

>
>> [I still don't believe anyone puts an /r/ in 'wash'. Not that I don't
>> trust you [i.e. everyone who claims it exists], just that it seems so
>> bizarre and unbelievable and plainly _wrong_.]
>
>
> Maybe /A/ becoming [O] again, as apparently is happening in "wash", has
> led people, perhaps by hypercorrection, to throw an [r] into the words,
> as for many Americans [O] is normally only found before /r/ (the /O/ seen
> in other American dialects, corresponding to RP /Q/ and /O:/, having
> fallen together with /A/ in all other environments).
>
> I suppose this would be moot if the dialects in question still
> retained the
> original /A/-/O/ distinction.  (Speaking of which, for those that do
> retain
> it, does "wash" have /A/ or /O/?  It's impossible to discover these
> things
> from the orthography--at least, if there are rules, I never learned
> them.)

And Marcos queried:

>So how did English end up with words spelled with |a| but pronounced
>with /O/?  Hypercorrection in response to all the |o| words getting
>pronounced /A/~/a/?
>
>
In general---a letter that denotes /w/ plus a letter that denotes a
short a has the letter that denotes a short a pronounced with a short o.
I call such a vowel /O/, but I think that usually translates into
American as /A/. The former can be <w>, <u> in <qu> or <wh>. I think the
latter can only be <a>, and not every <a> represents a short one, as
well you know :) Then, if there's an <r>-affecting-the-pronunciation
after the <a>, the pronounciation of <ar> is the same as the normal
pronunciation of <or>.* In most cases, a following velar stops
everything. I don't know when this change was active, but it seems to
have some sort of relative in many major dialects (conservative British
ones probably are excepted), yet many Aboriginal place names beginning
with Wa- are pronounced /wO/.

Hence:

Orthography  AuE     AmE** that distinguishes /A/ and /O/
wash         wOS     wAS
watch        wOtS    wAtS
what         wOt     wVt (for some reason)
quality      kwOl-   kwAl-
warn         wo:n    wOrn
wharf        wo:f    wOrf
quarter      k(w)o:- kwOr-
wag          w&:g    w&g
whack        w&k     w&k
quack        kw&k    kw&k


'Water' is somewhat exceptional IMD, being pronounced as though it has
an r before the t. But then, the t is single so the a doesn't represent
a short one...

* Or possibly <oar>, they're the same in my dialect.

** This is a hypothetical dialect that may or may not represent a real
one in all details but covers my understanding close neoguh.


Marcos:

>The sound /O/ is absent from my dialect except for words ending in -aw
>and -all.  For me, "water", "wash", "Washington", "father", "cot", "caught",
>"cough", "bought", and "lot" all have the same vowel,  For that matter, that
>same vowel is the one in "latte", "taco", and all those other borrowed
>words which have an /a/ in the source language that inexplicably turns
>into /&/ in Rightpondian.  (I just got back from our weekly
>"Tacko Tuesday" lunch with my British boss.)
>
>
And I think of 'Tacko' as an American pronunciation, thanks to some
Simpsons episodes... I say /ta:kVu/, being 'tarco' if you wish to
orthographise it. Newer borrowings, esp. those of non-famous personal
names, tend to borrow foreign /a/ as /a/ (i.e. short u) except in the
penultimate syllable if followed by one consonant, when it's pronounced
as /a:/ (i.e. ar). Or something stupid like that. Guantanamo (Bay) is
pronounced /gwan"tan@mVu/, frex.

--
Tristan.

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