Re: USAGE: Permissable /IN/ (was: [i:]=[ij]?)

And Rosta <a.rosta@...> wrote:
>
> Dennis Paul Himes:
> >
> >     For me "sing" is definitely /siN/.  It's not that /IN/ sounds weird
> > or unEnglish -- I can pronounce /sIN/ easily enough -- it's just that
> > /IN/ doesn't appear in any English words that I can think of.
>
> Can _seeing_ be monosyllabic for you? If so, is it homophonous with
> _sing_?
    No.  In careful speech it's /si iN/.  In fast speech it's /si @n/.
Although the noun "being" can be /biN/ in fast speech.

> Is _sink_ also /si:Nk/, or is it /sINk/ (as it is for the rest of the
> world)?
    Definitely /siNk/.  "Sink" and "seek" have the same vowel.  (There is no
phonemic distinction between [i:] and [i] in my dialect.)  Once again,
/sINk/ is easy to pronounce, and doesn't sound especially weird, but it's
not what I say.  It's also not what I hear, but I've been known to hear
phonemes that I expect to hear even when they're not really there; I was in
my twenties before I realized that no one I knew outside of my family
pronounced the /r/ in "wash".

 ===========================================================================

             Dennis Paul Himes    <>    dennis@himes.connix.com
                  http://www.connix.com/~dennis/dennis.htm

Disclaimer: "True, I talk of dreams; which are the children of an idle
brain, begot of nothing but vain fantasy; which is as thin of substance as
the air."                      - Romeo & Juliet, Act I Scene iv Verse 96-99