Re: NATLANG: Long/Short Variations in English

On Thu, 27 May 2004 16:20:53 -0400, Roger Mills <rfmilly@...> wrote:

>This one I'm unsure about, but one does hear lots of people using [e] where
>[@] would be expected.  Once upon a time, [e] was emphatic, sometimes you
>can still glimpse emphasis, but not always. Sometimes, it also seems to be
>replacing "an", so maybe we're getting an alternation [@] before C, [e]
>before V, parallel to [D@] ~[Di].  Sais pas. A puzzlement.
The original form was "an," related to "one."  Then the -n was lost before
a word beginning with a consonant.  Both this and the long/short emphasis
contrast must have occurred before the Great Vowel Shift, so there was /an/
before a word beginning with a vowel, /a/ before a word beginning with a
consonant and /a:/ as an emphatic form of the previous.

>See above. [Di:] is simply the variant called for before an initial vowel.
>Individual usage does vary, but isn't "supposed" to........
>
>"The man..." [D@'m&n], "the apple..." [Di'(j)&p@l] vs.
>"_The_ man" ['Di'm&n] emphatic, OK; "the apple" ?*[D@'&p@l] not
particularly
>euphonious, usually requires a glottal stop [D@'?&ap@l] and frankly sounds
>wrong to fuddy-duddies like me........
Yeah, that does make sense, now that I think about it.  Saying /Di: {pl./
(where "l." is a sonant l) sounds "better" or "more natural" than /D@
{pl./.  You're right, the contrast must again be from emphasis differences
as with "a" above.  Emphatic forms lengthened the vowel (seems natural to
me).

>> "to": /t_h@/ vs. /t_hu:/ (< /t_ho:/)
>> "you": /j@/ ~ /ja/ vs. /ju:/
>
>These are simply fast/informal speech vs. slower/more formal.
Yeah.  My hypothesis was that these are sometimes treated as clitics.  In
clitic position, the vowel is shortened.  Add in sound changes over the
past few centuries, and you get the distinctions today.  Word-final vowels
in English are almost always long (except for /a/ ~ /@/ for word-final "-
a").  "To" was originally pronounced /t_ho:/; the Great Vowel Shift
made /o:/ > /u:/, giving /t_hu:/.  Also at some point, both /u/ and /o/
> /@/.
- Rob

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