Re: USAGE: English, Masculine, Feminine

On Jun 14, 2004, at 11:14 PM, Arthaey Angosii wrote:
> Emaelivpeith Emily:
>> emily says [ ho:mz ]. I have one of those interesting speech registers
>> that notes all three vowels in Mary, Marry & Merry (which Pacific
>> Coast
>> speakers hear & say as an even [ E ] instead)
>
> Apologies for contributing to YAEPT, but I'm curious... I'm one of
> those Pacific Coast speakers, and I'd like to know what vowel values
> you have for Mary, Marry, and Merry.
> Do you also have distinct vowels in Caught vs Cot? They both have [A]
> for me, but I'm told it's more common to have [O] and [A],
> respectively.
> --
> AA
Here's NYC (or at least one kind of NYC dialect):

Mary = /me@ri/
marry = /m&ri/
merry = /mEri/

(all /r/s are of course usual American English approximants)

caught = /kO(@)t/
cot = /kat/~/kAt/


-Stephen (Steg)
  "your whistling sounds like scary alien bees!"
      ~ why not to attempt tuvan throat singing in public

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