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USAGE: front vowel tensing [was: English notation]

From:dirk elzinga <dirk.elzinga@...>
Date:Friday, June 29, 2001, 14:32
Delurking briefly --

On Fri, 29 Jun 2001, Christian Thalmann wrote:

> Tom Tadfor Little wrote: > > > most non-phoneticians > > would probably tell you that "English" and "rely" both have a "long E". > > Even an average American, who knows as good as nothing about > linguistics, would have to realize after some contemplation that the > sound in "English" is the same as in "bin": a short, lax /I/.
Not necessarily. Many varieties of Western American English (including the one I speak, and presumably the one Tom speaks) has front vowel tensing before the velar nasal. This means that the vowels in 'peek' and 'pink' are distinguished only by nasality: 'pink' has a nasal vowel and 'peek' does not. Likewise 'bake' and 'bank'. Dirk -- Dirk Elzinga dirk.elzinga@m.cc.utah.edu "The strong craving for a simple formula has been the undoing of linguists." - Edward Sapir

Replies

Tom Tadfor Little <tom@...>
tristan alexander mcleay <zsau@...>