Re: English syllable structure

Tristan:
> On Sat, 8 Dec 2001, And Rosta wrote:
>
> > 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
>
> Really? I thought it was the other way around with `pasta'... I'd assumed
> that the reason I said /pA:st@/ was because of the same reason I say
> /pA:st@/ for `pastor'...
You may well be right. And in fact _master_ and _plaster_ have /A:/
of _father_ even in some English dialects that otherwise don't have
A-lengthening (in _grass_, etc.). But I can't think of any native
words that are /A:st@r/ in AmE, let alone /A:st@/.

--And.