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Re: Elvish ideas ...

From:Thomas R. Wier <trwier@...>
Date:Wednesday, August 20, 2003, 0:03
Quoting Chris Bates <christopher.bates@...>:

> >Quoting Chris Bates <christopher.bates@...> > >>I'm checking my pronunciation again... there's definately a long u in my > >>"suit"... "assume" pronounced asu:m feels english but maybe with an > >>american accent to me... saying prezju:m that feels like a normal > >>pronunciation to me too... > > > >I think Mark's point was that for the vast, vast (vast...) > >majority of English speakers, vowels are allophonically > >lengthened before voiced obstruents. Thus, for a speaker > >to have a long [u:] before a voiceless obstruent like in > >'suit' is contrary to all expectation. It suggests that > >you have a phonemic distinction of length (/u/ v. /u:/) > >in addition to one of quality (/u/ v. /U/). > > Perhaps I'm wrong then... *shrugs* it just feels long to me... he says > in his dialect the vowel in suit is shorter than in soon, but when I say > them the u vowels sound the same in suit and soon, in both length and > quality.
Well, I'm not saying you're wrong. It's just very strange (that is, very interesting). Maybe you should find you local phonetics lab and test it for yourself? (BTW, perhaps you could respond *below* posts, rather than above. I, and I'm sure others, find it very jarring to have to flip back up to the top after reading the context of posts.) ========================================================================= Thomas Wier "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally, Dept. of Linguistics because our secret police don't get it right University of Chicago half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of 1010 E. 59th Street Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter. Chicago, IL 60637