Re: Californian vowels [was Re: Liking German]
| From: | Lars Henrik Mathiesen <thorinn@...> |
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| Date: | Monday, October 1, 2001, 7:46 |
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> Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2001 03:28:44 EDT
> From: Elliott Lash <AL260@...>
>
> Also, bringing this thread back to its roots, I'd like to address
> something I've noticed in the speech of a friend of mine from LA.
>
> In his speech the vowel /u/ becomes /y/ or something close to that
> in some environments. Right now I don't really remember what those
> environments might be but a few of the words I remember are:
>
> food /fyd/
> too /ty/
>
> hrm...I hesitate to say that it's exactly /y/ because 'too' doesn't
> sound like french 'tu' to me.
Could this be the unrounded lax /u/ that someone else was talking
about a few days ago? For back or central vowels, if you don't have a
contrast or allophonicity between rounded and unrounded yourself, the
unrounded one can sound like a rounded(!) front vowel instead.
> Also, I'd like to point out that the word 'move' which I pronounce
> /muv/ is also pronounced /muv/ by my friend....go figure. :)
In that case I think the /m/ would tend to preserve the rounding of
the /u/.
Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn@...> (Humour NOT marked)