Not really; /ɑ, ɔ, ə/ has to precede another vowel for it to become a problem in English. I just think it’s interesting that speakers who resolve such vowel hiatuses with intrusive-r (e.g., Shah[ɹ̞]esque, Kakfa[ɹ̞]esque) never seem to do so inside stems: ‘naive’ /nɑˈiːv/ → /naɪˈiːv/, not */nɑ[ɹ̞]iːv/
Same question for Aosta, which is apparently /ɑːˈɒstə/ in the UK and /ɑˈoʊstə/ or /ɑˈɔstə/ in the US. (Canadians tend to say /eɪˈɒstə/)
Btw I’ve been told that morpheme-medial vowel hiatuses beginning in /ɑ, ɔ, ə, ʌ/ can also be “repaired” with an onset glide:
‘naive’ /nɑˈiːv/ → /...ˈjiːv/
‘Haiti’ /hɑˈiːti/ → /...ˈjiːti/
‘Raul’ /ɹɑˈuːl/ → /...ˈwuːl/?
Do non-rhotic speakers ever “repair” morpheme-medial vowel hiatuses beginning in /ɑ/, /ɔ/ or /ə/ with intrusive-r instead of a diphthong?
‘naive’ /nɑˈiːv/ → /naɪˈiːv/ or /nɑ[ɹ̞]iːv/?
‘Haiti’ /hɑˈiːti/ → /haɪˈiːti/ or /hɑ[ɹ̞]iːti/
‘Raul’ (Spanish name) /ɹɑˈuːl/ → /ɹaʊˈuːl/ or /ɹɑ[ɹ̞]uːl/?
Haiti is /ˈheɪti/ for most but the Merriam-Webster recommends /hɑˈiːti/. Does anyone say it that way, or is it actually /haɪˈiːti/? English phonology famously disapproves of vowel hiatuses beginning in /ɑ/, /ɔ/ or /ə/, so ‘naive’ /nɑˈiːv/, say, is often “repaired” as /naɪˈiːv/
The <ow> in Mowgli has always been /oʊ/ for me but Kipling intended /aʊ/. Good to have yet another example of /aʊ/ followed by a heterosyllabic non-coronal consonant: /ˈmaʊ.ɡli/
I’m curious because many speakers do not clip or raise /aɪ/ in ‘cyclone’ and ‘cyclops’. I suspect it’s because the speakers in question analyze them as pseudocompounds: cy|clone, cy|clops.
Does anyone clip or raise the diphthong in Wyclef /ˈwaɪˌklɛf/?
“I just can’t wait to be Singh!”
Aymara /ajˈmaɾa/ → /ˌaɪməˈɹɑ/
Ay, moronic hyperforeignization?
The NEAR vowel is closer to /i/ in Canadian English, e.g. ‘beer’ /biɹ/. It’s supposedly closer to /ɪ/ in the US, e.g. ‘beer’ /bɪɹ/, pace this PGA pronunciation guide which gives O’Meara as “oh-mee-ruh”
or, if your NEAR vowel is /ɪ/, “titter-totter, O’Meara-O’Meara”
I love that O’Meara is pronounced with complete opposite vowels: /oʊˈmiɹə/ or /oʊˈmɑɹə/. It’s like ablaut reduplication applied to names: “teeter-totter, O’Meara-O’Meara”—or, if your NEAR vowel is /ɪ/, “titter-totter, O’Meara-O’Meara”
#OTD 254 years ago, Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829) was born 🥳 With the publication of "Ueber die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier" (1808), he became one of the founding figures of Indo-European studies. A street in Berlin is named after him (and his brother).
#LinguisticBirthdays #Histlx
‘trysail’ doesn’t show raising in Barber’s (2004) Canadian Oxford Dictionary so I assume that the stem boundary has survived the reduction of the second member of the compound (try)(sail) and its tran“sition to a suffix”
Thanks!
I’m tempted to suggest ‘lingster’ for linguist and ‘phonster’ for phon- peeps but unfortunately -ster has a derogatory connotation so maybe not
The suffix -ster may loom larger in ‘shyster’ in my head. It’s rather productive, eh? From oldies like youngster, mobster, songster, sportster, swordster, etc. to names like Bobster, Chuckster, Jackster, Rickter, etc. to newer ones like hip-hopster,TEDster, modster, wokester, Trumpster, etc.
thanks!
Well the second syllable is always unstressed. The initial voiceless consonants of these stressless syllables seem to affect the preceding diphthong less in the first word of each pair, where the stressless syllable is a suffix or at least suffix-like
Anyone else have the impression that /aɪ/ is a tad shorter and higher in the second of each of these pairs?
‘sighful’ /ˈsaɪ.fəl/ vs. ‘stifle’ /ˈstɐ̆i.fəl/
‘trysail’ /ˈtɹaɪ.səl/ vs. ‘lysin’ /lɐ̆i.sən/
‘shyster’ /ˈʃaɪ.stəɹ/ vs. ‘-meister’ /mɐ̆i.stəɹ/
[broadish transcriptions in my Canadian English]
Fantastic use of prosodic and morphological ambiguity: ‘spyship’ /ˈspaɪˌʃɪp/ is both a single prosodic word with the word-level suffix ‑ship, meaning “the office or occupation of a spy,” and a compound word which consists of two prosodic words, meaning “vessel used for espionage”
Very cool example of implied ‘even’, thanks @languagedoodad.bsky.social! I think it would sound a bit contrived to say “He hasn’t even the brains of a gnat” or “he doesn’t even have the brains of a gnat”
“He doesn’t have the brains of a gnat”
British hyperforeignism du jour
Heartbroken to learn that my friend, godfather of Canadian sociolinguistics, and Miles Davis biographer, Jack Chambers has moved on.
“Tomoip phonetics and phonology” by Russell Barlow and Don Killian (2023) pure.mpg.de/rest/items/i...
Prof. Gilbert Ansre has passed. Our field is indebted to him for foundational work on Ewe, starting with his 1961 MA thesis “The tonal structure of Ewe” and his 1966 PhD thesis “The grammatical units of Ewe: a study of their structure, classes and systems”
They all did it:
