Re: þe getisbyrg adres

Mark P. Line wrote:
> I think the voiceless phoneme must still be alive in some lects. I have
> it, including minimal pairs "which/witch", "what/watt", "whether/weather"
> etc.  I was born (in 1956) and raised in the South Midland dialect band of
> the US, in northeastern Oklahoma. Most of my vowels have adapted somewhat
> to SAE, but my consonants are generally the same as my mom's and
> siblings'.
>
At risk of stepping into YAEPT, I must say that not only is [W] still
alive, but it is being passed down to the younger generations.

I was born in 1983, and I've always lived in southeast Tennessee. Almost
everybody around here (including myself) has "which" and "witch", for
example, as distinct words.

I also have /nju/ for "new", and /tjuzdi/ for "Tuesday". A lot of people
40 and up also have /stjupId/ for "stupid", among other things,
especially in the rural areas.

> My speech also seems to be an outlier in its complete lack of alveolar or
> even velarized alveolar laterals: all my laterals are velar (apical
> articulator below the bottom teeth), in all contexts. This causes me to
> have a voiceless velar lateral allophone (in forms like "clay") that even
> Ken Pike said he didn't think ever occurred even phonetically in any
> natlang. *shrug*
>
I have alveolar laterals, but I also have the "clay" form that you have.
How would you write that in CXS, anyway?

I guess I need to start listening to people talking, instead of just
hearing them. I'm the only one that can, though, because a real
phonetician's head would explode after the first "I". :)

--
Michael

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