Re: CHAT: barbarisms (was: CHAT: Being both theologically correct and

On Tue, May 15, 2001 at 05:37:11AM +0000, Raymond Brown wrote:
> At 9:22 am -0600 14/5/01, dirk elzinga wrote:
> >Some
> >people do give the name initial stress ['El.ziN.g@], but the
> >final vowel annoyingly often becomes a syllabic /r/ (!).
>
> Interesting - I'd always thought of Elzinga as being stressed on the first
> syllable; it never occurred to me to do otherwise (and I certainly don't
> add any final /r/!  )
I can attest to a "desire" to pronounce a final syllabic /r/. Even though I
speak a rhotic dialect (Midwestern US), [@] just doesn't sound right in that
position, and my vocal apparatus tends to want to pronounce it [r=]. I think
it's because (for me) that syllable has secondary stress, and for some
reason secondary-stress word-final [@] doesn't feel comfortable to me,
whereas [r=] does. Perhaps it's that I was already familiar with a few names
ending in [1N%r=], such as <Geisinger> ["gaiz1N%r=].

I also don't like to say <automata> because my idiolect
would render it as [O"tAm@%t@], and that secondarily-stressed [@] just
doesn't seem to belong.

--
Eric Christopherson / *Aiworegs Ghristobhorosyo

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