Re: Californian vowels [was Re: Liking German]
From: | Thomas R. Wier <trwier@...> |
Date: | Monday, October 1, 2001, 20:25 |
Quoting David Peterson <DigitalScream@...>:
> But then, on top of that, is what I mentioned first,
> where initial [t] is almost becoming the affricate [ts]
> everywhere except before [a]--and this is no joke; it's
> really happening.
This is not surprising. It's happened in many languages,
including Japanese and Quebecois French (the latter also
before [y].
> I've been noticing this over the past year or so.
It'll be interesting to see if and when and where this
spreads. Another interesting dialectal fact I've noticed
upon moving to Chicago: a significant number of people
here, most of whom aren't from the South, use <y'all>
for the second person plural pronoun. Jerry Sadock,
the syntax professor here, informs me that <youse> is
also fairly widespread, but <y'all> is spreading faster.
That too does not surprise me; there are between 75 and
100 million Southerners who use it.
==============================
Thomas Wier <trwier@...>
"If a man demands justice, not merely as an abstract concept,
but in setting up the life of a society, and if he holds, further,
that within that society (however defined) all men have equal rights,
then the odds are that his views, sooner rather than later, are going
to set something or someone on fire." Peter Green, in _From Alexander
to Actium_, on Spartan king Cleomenes III
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