Re: Californian vowels [was Re: Liking German]

Quoting David Peterson <DigitalScream@...>:

> In a message dated 9/28/01 4:43:10 PM, exponent@TECHNOLOGIST.COM
> writes:
>
> << No, I'm not Southern Californian, but I know an acquaintance who
> has the very annoying speech impediment of pronouncing the word "milk"
> as /mELk/ (with velar l) >>
>
>     Well, of course it's velar [L], but you can honestly tell the
> difference between [mELk] and [mILk]?  So, if I recorded, say, twenty
> instances of both and mixed them up, you would be able to tell one from the
> other?
Without question, for me.  The two are entirely distinct in my
dialect, and, presumably also in Oklahoma as well (where my
informant comes from).

For me, on the other hand, nonlow lax front vowels (/I/ and /E/)
before [N] merge with their nearest tense counterparts, so that
/sIN/ "sing" [siN] and /bEN/ "bang" > [be:N] (that latter also
affected by a general raising before nasal consonants: æ > E).

==============================
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