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Re: Not *that* vowel again! (was: Personal adjectives (was:Fruitful typos...)

From:John Cowan <jcowan@...>
Date:Monday, January 24, 2000, 15:29
BP Jonsson wrote:

> It sounds as [e@] to my foreign ear. I've seen it represented by American > linguists as [I@], but I think that may be because there is no > monophthongal [e] sound in their speech.
In Fuluffyan (the dialect of Philadelphia [f@'lVfj@]), the sound is [i@]. This is most distinctive and has been so for many decades, well in advance of the Northern Cities Chain Shift that is altering [&] generally. (No accident that Labov's based in Philadelphia, methinks.)
> What strikes me with NYC speech is that /&/ seems to be nasalized in all > positions.
In my variety of English, which comes from just outside the NYC isogloss, *all* vowels are nasalized. -- Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis vom dies! || John Cowan <jcowan@...> Schliesst euer Aug vor heiliger Schau, || http://www.reutershealth.com Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau, || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan Und trank die Milch vom Paradies. -- Coleridge (tr. Politzer)