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Re: USAGE: intrusive "r" [was Re: (Offlist) Re: ASCII IPA]

From:Thomas R. Wier <trwier@...>
Date:Thursday, August 22, 2002, 7:46
Quoting Steg Belsky <draqonfayir@...>:

> On Wed, 21 Aug 2002 23:11:39 -0500 "Thomas R. Wier" <trwier@...> > writes: > > Quoting "Thomas R. Wier" <trwier@...>: > > > So, in both cases, South Dakotan _idear_ and Texan _cuss_, it > > seems > > > the odd addition or lack of rhoticness is defined in the UR. > > > I forgot to add that _cuss_ is a separate lexical entry > > from _curse_. The distinction is whether you're invoking > > the supernatural or not: with the former, you aren't, with > > the latter, you are. > > Not necessarily, at least from my experience. I never remember hearing > "cuss" in a natural, 'living language' context when i was growing up, and > i still hardly ever hear it except from people who speak a substantially > different dialect of English from mine. We always distinguished between > "mummy's curse" (your latter) and "curse word" (=cuss, your fomer)
Right, I was speaking about *my* dialect and the South, as the context should have made clear I didn't mean to imply that people who use "curse" in my former sense can't distinguish between the two usages, just that in *my* speech the two meanings are both phonologically and semantically distinct, and do not overlap in usage. ========================================================================= Thomas Wier Dept. of Linguistics "Nihil magis praestandum est quam ne pecorum ritu University of Chicago sequamur antecedentium gregem, pergentes non qua 1010 E. 59th Street eundum est, sed qua itur." -- Seneca Chicago, IL 60637