Re: English syllable structure

Elliot Lash:
>  "Thomas R. Wier" <trwier@...> writes:
>
> > Quoting And Rosta <a.rosta@...>:
> >
> > > Kou:
> > > > /nIk@rA:gju@/ sounds distinctly British (BBC) to my ears. Too, the
> > > car
> > > > "Jaguar" pronounced à la britannique sounds like  /dZ&gju@/.
> > >
> > > In English English _Nicaragua_ and _jaguar_ rhyme in /&gju:@/.
> > > /nIk@'r&gw@/ or (god help us!) /nIk@'rA:gw@/ would sound insufferably
> > > pretentious. It seems to be symptomatic of the different ways that
> > > English and American English do Foreign. E.g. Eng E renders _pasta_
> > > and _costa_ as /p&st@/ and /kQst@/, as tho they were native E words,
> > > whereas Am E does them as /pAst@/ and /kowst@/, i.e. with Am E
> > > phonemes but Foreign phonotactics (alient for monomorphemic words).
>
> Hmm..../pAst@/ and /kOst@/ for me...a native New Yorker. Why does
> there seem to be an overwhelming tendency to think that there's ONE
> American pronunciation.
Because, relatively speaking, there is. Accent differences within the
USA are relatively trivial when compared to Accent differences within
Britain. Similarly, differences among Southern Hemisphere English and
South Eastern England are comparatively trivial. In addition, "American
English pronunciation" is normally understood to mean the accent
called "General American", just as "British English pronunciation" is
normally understood to mean RP. Those are the hegemonic accents within
the respective countries.

--And.