Re: USAGE: YAEPT (was Re: Ba'l-a-i-bal-an)

On 5/23/06, Philip Newton <philip.newton@...> wrote:
> On 5/21/06, John Vertical <johnvertical@...> wrote:
> [> Jim Henry wrote:]
> > >* worlang /w@`leIN/ [ < "wor(ship) lang(uage)"]
> >
> > OK, I'll bite. Why the /eI/?
>
> I suspect this is actually /&/ phonemically, but [eI] phonetically for
> Jim Henry.
Yes; "lang", "hang", "sang" etc. have /eIN/ or
perhaps /ejN/ in my 'lect.  The @` is supposed
to be a rhotic schwa, though I may have gotten
the CXS notation wrong.

> Nasals, especially the velar nasal, tend to change the quality of
> vowels -- for example, the vowel sound in |sing| is, to me, about
> half-way between that in |sin| and that in |seen|. (And trying to
> pronounce |sing| with the vowel in |sin| makes it sound more like
> */s@N/ than /sIN/!)
In my lect the difference in the vowels of
"sing" and "seen" is, I think, both length
and diphthongization -- the latter long and
maybe slightly diphthongized, though not as much
as the /sij/ in "see"

The most noticable mutation of a vowel caused by
a following nasal in my lect happens with /&/
(NOT in "language" etc, though).  I think it's a
triphthong but I'm not sure of the best way to
transcribe it.  In "pan", "slam", etc., I have something
like /p&j@n/ - very distinct from the more or less
pure /&/ found when a non-nasal consonant follows
as in "pass" /p_h&s/, "pat" /p_h&at/, etc.

--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry