Re: USAGE: Shaw alphabet (was Re: USAGE: Con-graphies)

From: Steven Williams

--- Joe <joe@...> schrieb:
> As far as I can tell, [&] seems to break in American
> dialects before nasals.  So, 'dance' is /d&ns/
> [d&@ns].  That's just from my rightpondian
> perspective though.
"Precisely! And it's taken even further in some Southern USAian dialects,
where /&/ breaks to [&@] before _all_ voiced sounds (and there's similar
breakage in certain other vowel sounds, most notably /I/).

cat [k&t]
cab [k&:b] (usual) [k&@b] (Southern)
can [k&@n]

I think I asked a question to the list on this topic a while ago, maybe six
months or a year ago, and it was explained to me that voiced sounds,
especially nasals, have a tendency to lengthen preceding vowel sounds, and
in some dialects, this triggers breaking in certain conditioned
environments. Makes sense."

----------------------

To my knowledge, these distinctions are all allophonic, though.

I've communicated to some US speakers who have the impression that vowels
are "long" before <ng>, so that <king> is /kiN/ rather than expected /kIN/.
So maybe this extends to /ns/ as well and <dance> is /dens/ and not /d&ns/.
Can any US speakers enlighten me on that?

Dan (UK Northern English (Lancashire))

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