Re: THEORY: [i:]=[ij]? (was Re: Pronouncing "Boreanesia")
| From: | Roger Mills <romilly@...> |
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| Date: | Thursday, November 2, 2000, 7:00 |
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Irina wrote:
>On Wed, 1 Nov 2000, Nik Taylor wrote:
>
>> */IN/ is illegal in my idiolect.
>
>Then how do you pronounce "thing"?>
Permissible pontification: (?) there is no tense/lax contrast in English
before /N/ or /r/ (at least in monosyllables). The vowel is neither [i] nor
[I], but somewhere in-between-- usually closer to [I] I think (it is for
me).
I _suspect_ that may be true of Dutch too-- long/short vowels? (maybe even
German, but I'm on thin ice here.) Are contrasting forms like "zingen :
?ziengen" possible? "vier : ....? Hmm-- there is ver : veer (far:
feather), but is the /e/ of ver "short e" or schwa? Or is veer 2 syllables
(as it is historically, veder)....(Pardon my bookish Dutch.......)