Re: CHAT French undies (was: Re: Linguistic Terminology)

Raymond A. Brown wrote:

> >As a preliminary sidenote, you might want to note that in many varieties of
> >British English, /&/
>
> Certainly in Wales, the north of England and Highland Scots it is the low
> /a/ of the continental variety, which is also certainly further back than
> the American or southern English variety.
>
> Southern English /&/ is definitely fronted and higher, tending towards /E/.
> Indeed, foreigners often have difficulty keeping the two sounds separate.
> I've mentioned before the Austrian girl who stayed with us a couple years
> who pronounced 'wellies' and 'valleys' practically the same.  I think the
> southern English variety is much the same as monophthongal American
> varieties. What we don't have is the [I@] or [E@] pronunciations.
Well, I don't doubt that Brit. /&/ is fronter and higher than Brit. /a/, but what Iwas
saying is that British /&/ compared to American /&/ is, *relatively speaking*, lower
and backer, but not by a lot.  I've seen this in my personal experience (as
I have quite a few friends who're either British themselves or have British
parents), and have seen it described in the literature, like I said, as one of
the reasons why Brits tend to go for /&/ rather than more /a/-like vowels
when borrowing words with /a/, while Americans tend to go for /A/ or something
like that, because British /&/ is actually closer to that than the American /&/ (which
in many cases is actually fronter and higher than /E/, phonologically speaking
-- if you don't believe me, see Labov for this).

Remember, I was talking about many varieties of British English, not all, also.
(One can almost always find a counterpoint to some item under discussion).

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Tom Wier <twier@...>
ICQ#: 4315704   AIM: Deuterotom
Website: <http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."

"Only the educated are free." - Epictetus
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