Re: Spelling pronunciations (was: rhotic miscellany)

From:    Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>
> Quoting "Thomas R. Wier" <trwier@...>:
> > Do you really speak a dialect of American English that contrasts
> > /V/ with /@/? My dialect certainly doesn't make such a contrast.
> > (My dialect also allows for a voiceless glide at the beginning.)
>
> I don't know if that's what you're refering to,
You guess correctly that it's "what" I was referring to.

> but some Americans I've
> heard on TV seem to produce "what", or rather the astounded interjection
> "What?!?", like [hwAt] with an audible initial glottal fricative. Is
> this anything any of you Americans rec'nize?
Certainly.  It's dying out in most places, but where it does occur
it can be very emphatic: [xwOt] or the like.

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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
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637