Re: Aks

On Sat, 27 Oct 2007 09:42:38 -0400, "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...>
said:
> Of course it does.  It would be strange indeed for the vowel to change
> due to metathesis.  It wouldn't just be metathesis anymore.
>
> It was a silly question. I somehow forgot that "ask" and "ax" have
> different vowels elsewhere, which makes no sense since "ask" is one of
> the stereotypical go-to words for fake British accents.
Well, from what Ray says, the English vowel in the metathesised form
remains /&/, regardless of lengthening in the "ask" vowel. And for good
reason --- in dialects where "ax" predominates, it's not in the right
position for lengthening. Just like "third" has a different vowel form
"three", even though it was historically a metathesis. But when
Australians use it, it's as an option alongside the normal "ask" no
doubt formed on analogy to AmE "ax" so it seems natural to keep the
"ask" vowel.

> So your "aks" sounds like our "ox", but not like your "ox" or "ax".
Perhaps to you. American [A] sounds more like my [O] to me, so your "ox"
sounds more like a strange "ox" to me, not like a strange "arx" --- your
vowel is too short and too far back to be /a:/. No doubt the fact that
the usual rule is AmE [A] = AusE [O] helps plenty.

--
Tristan.