Re: [IE conlangs]]

On Mon, 12 Apr 1999 19:08:10 -0500 Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
writes:
>Steg Belsky wrote:
>> In the NYC / Long Island area /&/ before nasals and /s/ (grass, can,
>ran,
>> Sam, bass, damn, fast; but it seems not before /N/) becomes the
>diphthong
>> [e@].  It also happens in other words, such as "bad" and "stab".
>Well, those are both voiced stops... does it also happen with "bag"?
>If so,
>then you have a soundlaw in operation there.  If not, then it might be
>that
>your vowel breaking (diphthongization) there might specificly exclude
>velar consonants.  Which would be an interesting soundlaw.
Yup, "bag" is [be@g], "rag" is [re@g], "sag" is [se@g].  However,
"magazine" is ['m&g@zi:n], with an [&].

>BTW, does it also happen to & / _z ? As in "as" or "frazzled" or
>something
>like that.
Nope, [&z] (frequently [@z]) and [fr&zld].

Hrrm...here's a list of "a" before all the consonantal sounds i can think
of:
(yes for [e@], no for [&])

dab - YES
rack - no
bad - YES
calf - YES
rag - YES
badge - YES
pal - no (but: pail - YES)
ram - YES
man - YES
gap - no
narrator - no   *  (although this may have something to do with the word
being multisyllabic...i couldn't think of any words that are only one
syllable ending in -ar which weren't [a] like "far", "car")
grass - YES
cat - no
calves - YES  *  (but savvy - no....it could have to do with the length
of the word, or "calves" could just be because of "calf")
ax - no
as - no
cats - no
batch - no
bath - YES
sang - no
crash - YES
azure - no  *  (but that could be because it's multisyllabic)
fads - YES


There could be something to the one / many syllable(s) distinction, for
instance:

"dab" YES, but "rabbit" NO, but "grab it" YES
"bad" YES, but "paddy" NO
"calf" YES, but "daffodil" NO, but "rafting" YES (from "raft" YES)
"rag" YES, but "dagger" NO, "drag her" YES
"badge" YES, but "badger" NO
"ram" YES, but "camera" NO
"man" YES, as well as "bandit", "fancy", "Randall",
"transportation"...maybe /n/ always does it...
"grass" YES, but "tacit" NO
"calves" YES, but "savvy" NO
"bath" YES,  but "mathematics" NO but "math" YES
"crash" YES, but "fashion" NO
"fads" YES (i can't think of any multisyllabic /dz/ word)

And it's also "gonad" NO...

So far it seems that /&/ becomes [e@] in monosyllabic words (and their
derivatives) before the consonants:
/ b d f g m s v T S / , and possibly always before /n/.

Hrrm...what do those have in common?  Or alternately, what do the other
consonants have in common that keeps /&/ the way it is?

>=======================================================
>Tom Wier <artabanos@...>

-Stephen (Steg)
 "a tune you can't get from a shofar"

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