Re: yeah (was Re: Moraic codas)

On 19 July, David Peterson wrote:

<snip>

>Also, "yes!" is
>usually only said by one or two people.  I don't think I've ever heard of a
>group of people all saying "yes!" at the same time, mainly because you
can't
>hold it.  Once you get to the <s>, you've got to stop or you're just
hissing.

    If I might digress for a moment from English, I find it curious that
a very similar sequence of sounds is used here in Israel (but for soccer,
not baseball ;-)   ). Anyhow, the Hebrew equivalent moves the final
fricative a little further back in the mouth (Hebrew /jeS/ = "there is",
as opposed to the English /jes/ ), but the use is very similar.
At the critical point in the game, one might hear a mighty  /je::/
with different people finishing the word at different times, so that
the hissing is more or less drowned out by the vowel-roar.
    However, in one-on-one situations the whole word is ejected,
the lengths of the /e/ and the /S/ mostly determined by how
emotional the speaker is.  For example, the very emphatic and sharp
/jeS/ uttered by a kid I was treating for stuttering this past school-year,
upon learning that I had no intention of using the
boring material from class that his teacher had wanted me to include
along with my own stuff!  :-)
(And he said it without a single stutter too!  :-)  )

Dan Sulani
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likehsna rtem zuv tikuhnuh auag inuvuz vaka'a.

A word is an awesome thing.