zompist bboard

äreo wrote:"from" is for comparing nouns:
X is different from Y.
They speak differently from how we do.

"than" is used to compare clauses straight:
They speak differently than we do.

"to", as far as I can tell, is used for comparing perspectives:
That looks different to me (than it did/from how it did).
My prononciation of French is different to both Québec and European varieties.
[/i]

This sounds like what I do also, except I think I'd have "than" in the last example.

finlay wrote:

Alces wrote:[talking about 'aural']

Here's a question, and this one goes out to the general populace: do you make a distinction between 'oral' and 'aural'? They show up in conjunction in linguistics a lot. Let's assume that you don't force a distinction by pronouncing the second with a MOUTH vowel...

I have something like [u̞ˤɻˤɫ̩] (still trying to figure out what my /or/ is; that's [u_o_?\r\`_?\5=] in X-SAMPA) for both. If I were to force a distinction, it would have to be with /ɑ/ for "aural"; I don't think I'd ever give it three syllables, which is what pronouncing it with /au/ would do. /aur/ IMD is pretty heavily broken: "power" [pʰæə̯wɵ˞]

finlay wrote:

YngNghymru wrote:Isn't that how they're meant to be used? 'Different from' modifies a noun, 'different than' a clause, etc?

Prescriptivists have been known to have battles over which is the more correct. Take note: even they can't decide. If your dialect forces a distinction, fine. But most people's don't, or force a different distinction. It all depends on which other similar phrase it's used with analogy to (I can't remember an example). I probably favour "different from" myself; "different than" sounds a bit odd to me at all. (There's also "different to")

Did you think I was being angrily prescriptivist? If so, I wasn't. I was noting the prescriptivist view, I'm certainly not at that end of the scale. Perhaps 'meant to' was aggressive.

YngNghymru wrote:

finlay wrote:

YngNghymru wrote:Isn't that how they're meant to be used? 'Different from' modifies a noun, 'different than' a clause, etc?

Prescriptivists have been known to have battles over which is the more correct. Take note: even they can't decide. If your dialect forces a distinction, fine. But most people's don't, or force a different distinction. It all depends on which other similar phrase it's used with analogy to (I can't remember an example). I probably favour "different from" myself; "different than" sounds a bit odd to me at all. (There's also "different to")

Did you think I was being angrily prescriptivist? If so, I wasn't. I was noting the prescriptivist view, I'm certainly not at that end of the scale. Perhaps 'meant to' was aggressive.

No.

I'm just pointing out that it's a common point of contention amongst prescriptivists, and they're not even sure what's right half the time.

finlay wrote:

Alces wrote:[talking about 'aural']

Here's a question, and this one goes out to the general populace: do you make a distinction between 'oral' and 'aural'? They show up in conjunction in linguistics a lot. Let's assume that you don't force a distinction by pronouncing the second with a MOUTH vowel...


I'm just wondering if I'm the only one that goes /oral/ versus /Oral/ (ignoring the /ral/ bit obv.). FORCE-NORTH distinction perhaps....?

They're homophonous for me, both /O:r@l/.

If I have to make a distinction, I pronounce aural as [awral] or [aural], pretty much as written. Oral is always [O:ral] and so's aural, most of the time.

YngNghymru wrote:If I have to make a distinction, I pronounce aural as [awral] or [aural], pretty much as written. Oral is always [O:ral] and so's aural, most of the time.

That is the thing - I could pronounce aural as [ˈɒːʁˤɯ(ː)], but that would just seem like a horrible spelling pronunciation to me, as I have, say, laurel [ˈʟ̞ɔːʁˤɯ(ː)]~[ˈɰɔːʁˤɯ(ː)], Laurence [ˈʟ̞ɔːʁˤɨ̃nts]~[ˈʟ̞ɔːʁˤn̩ts]~[ˈɰɔːʁˤɨ̃nts]~[ˈɰɔːʁˤn̩ts], and Lauren [ˈʟ̞ɔːʁˤɨ̃(ː)n]~[ˈʟ̞ɔːʁˤn̩(ː)]~[ˈɰɔːʁˤɨ̃(ː)n]~[ˈɰɔːʁˤn̩(ː)] without [ɒː] in any of those cases, ever.

Yeah, it sounds wrong to me, but a distinction has to be made sometimes, and pronouncing it as spelt makes it easier for people to understand. It's usually accompanied by 'hey this is obviously affected' body language so people don't think I'm just mispronouncing it like ['ɑ:tʃIpɛlego] all over again.

My "aural" has /O:/ [Q:] and my "oral" has /O:r/ [o_or\]. It's just a syllable bounary phonologically.

And Nortaneous, I told you what your /or/ is, a syllabic postalveolarized rounded lateralized preuvular approximant.

It's nothing like bunched r. It's lower than that, so uvular instead of preuvular/velar, and the retroflexion is apical and higher up ( = back more) than the postalveolarization in bunched r. Also, I don't think it's lateralized at all.

Now the question is how would I write that?

Travis B. wrote:

YngNghymru wrote:If I have to make a distinction, I pronounce aural as [awral] or [aural], pretty much as written. Oral is always [O:ral] and so's aural, most of the time.

That is the thing - I could pronounce aural as [ˈɒːʁˤɯ(ː)], but that would just seem like a horrible spelling pronunciation to me, as I have, say, laurel [ˈʟ̞ɔːʁˤɯ(ː)]~[ˈɰɔːʁˤɯ(ː)], Laurence [ˈʟ̞ɔːʁˤɨ̃nts]~[ˈʟ̞ɔːʁˤn̩ts]~[ˈɰɔːʁˤɨ̃nts]~[ˈɰɔːʁˤn̩ts], and Lauren [ˈʟ̞ɔːʁˤɨ̃(ː)n]~[ˈʟ̞ɔːʁˤn̩(ː)]~[ˈɰɔːʁˤɨ̃(ː)n]~[ˈɰɔːʁˤn̩(ː)] without [ɒː] in any of those cases, ever.

I'm starting to wonder whether if I met you I'd think you had a speech impediment...

Another idiolect question: does anyone here make exclusive or preferential use of, say, anyone and everyone instead of anybody and everybody? These -one and -body endings are totally interchangeable, so I'm curious as to whether individuals actually make frequent use of both, or if they tend to prefer one over the other.

~70/30 maybe?

äreo wrote:Another idiolect question: does anyone here make exclusive or preferential use of, say, anyone and everyone instead of anybody and everybody?

yes, exclusively. same for someone/somebody

Nortaneous wrote:

äreo wrote:Another idiolect question: does anyone here make exclusive or preferential use of, say, anyone and everyone instead of anybody and everybody?

yes, exclusively. same for someone/somebody

This applies to me as well; I almost always use -one forms and not -body forms.

finlay wrote:

Travis B. wrote:

YngNghymru wrote:If I have to make a distinction, I pronounce aural as [awral] or [aural], pretty much as written. Oral is always [O:ral] and so's aural, most of the time.

That is the thing - I could pronounce aural as [ˈɒːʁˤɯ(ː)], but that would just seem like a horrible spelling pronunciation to me, as I have, say, laurel [ˈʟ̞ɔːʁˤɯ(ː)]~[ˈɰɔːʁˤɯ(ː)], Laurence [ˈʟ̞ɔːʁˤɨ̃nts]~[ˈʟ̞ɔːʁˤn̩ts]~[ˈɰɔːʁˤɨ̃nts]~[ˈɰɔːʁˤn̩ts], and Lauren [ˈʟ̞ɔːʁˤɨ̃(ː)n]~[ˈʟ̞ɔːʁˤn̩(ː)]~[ˈɰɔːʁˤɨ̃(ː)n]~[ˈɰɔːʁˤn̩(ː)] without [ɒː] in any of those cases, ever.

I'm starting to wonder whether if I met you I'd think you had a speech impediment...

How I speak is not a speech impediment*; rather, it is basically the traditional working-class Milwaukee dialect as picked up by middle-class suburban kids and then run with, with newer sound changes spreading throughout the Inland North region being piled on top thereof. I could speak General American if I chose to, aside from my /r/ and /l/, where even in my most formal speech I do not pronounce them as in GA, but I am just too used to GA being the speech of foreigners (to someone from southeastern Wisconsin, anyone from outside southeastern Wisconsin**) and stuffy middle-aged and older people (and very stuffy younger people); I am too used to speaking in a fashion that I find familiar rather than distant and foreign and which, amongst younger people from a similar social background, immediately marks one as being part of us** rather than them. Conversely, out here in Maryland, I find little reason to change how I speak, as how I speak at work and like is understood perfectly well by the people out here, and I personally identify little with a greater American polity and hence little with the people out here.

* When I have spoken German or, when it had not gotten horribly rusty, Japanese, my pronounciation of English really does not affect such much, aside from tending to still aspirate fortis plosives in Japanese and still nasalizing vowels as if I were speaking English, whereas if how I spoke English were due to a speech impediment that would be a different story...

** As a whole, traditional southeastern Wisconsin society is what I would call a closed society on multiple levels - it is the kind of thing that people who were not born into it or at least who did not grow up in it are regarded as essentially outside it, regardless of their position within American society as a whole, and furthermore where one was born into it is essentially immutable in the bigger scheme of things*****. Some of the suburbs, such as the one I am from, are such but even moreso, where in many cases many of the people who are really "inside" such have parents who knew each other in school, and which very well may have gone to many of the same schools as oneself.

*** Well, that depends - amongst working-class Milwaukee people, I still sound like a middle-class suburban kid, and for that matter people have been able to pick out which suburb I am from how I speak...

***** By that I mean that social position is largely not determined by wealth but rather by where in society one grew up, with social mobility being essentially limited both vertically and horizontally, in both directions rather than the typical being "easy" to go down socially but hard to go up socially for American society - for instance, a middle class person without money is still a middle class person, and will not be truly accepted by working class Milwaukeeans.

Travis B. wrote:

Nortaneous wrote:

äreo wrote:Another idiolect question: does anyone here make exclusive or preferential use of, say, anyone and everyone instead of anybody and everybody?

yes, exclusively. same for someone/somebody

This applies to me as well; I almost always use -one forms and not -body forms.

I generally do this with speaking, but do it the other way round when writing.

äreo wrote:Another idiolect question: does anyone here make exclusive or preferential use of, say, anyone and everyone instead of anybody and everybody? These -one and -body endings are totally interchangeable, so I'm curious as to whether individuals actually make frequent use of both, or if they tend to prefer one over the other.

I use -body more often, at least in speech... I think. I'm not entirely convinced this is regionally bound though. Maybe if you come up with some data.

Does anyone else make a distinction between 'have', 'have with' and 'have on'? The distinction between 'have something' and 'have something on you' is a common one in BrE and probably in AmE as well, but to me, 'have' is generic possession, 'have with' is somewhere in the same building or on a trip - say you were in a hotel and it was in your room - and 'have on' is have, in your possession, about your person, right now.

Travis B. wrote: * When I have spoken German or, when it had not gotten horribly rusty, Japanese, my pronounciation of English really does not affect such much, aside from tending to still aspirate fortis plosives in Japanese and still nasalizing vowels as if I were speaking English, whereas if how I spoke English were due to a speech impediment that would be a different story...

Perhaps I should have appended ":P". I do still want to actually hear you talk though; I try to pronounce what you've written in your transcription and it feels like I'm having difficulty swallowing. Or at least it does with the R and L, which I do realise is just the same but without contact/constriction at the alveolar ridge. It still sounds weird to me.

As for the section I've highlighted... I'm fairly sure Japanese voiceless plosives are aspirated, although not as much as English, and the moraic N does nasalise a preceding vowel. AFAIK anyway.

Travis B. wrote:How I speak is not a speech impediment* ...

You post a lot interesting stuff, but I can't be the only one who gets tired while reading posts like this one. I think even you got confused by your own footnotes here (where's number 4?), so imagine how much it breaks the flow of reading for someone who isn't already on board your train of thought. Your paragraphs also tend to be a bit too long. Do continue posting about this stuff, but please try to organize your posts a bit better.

YngNghymru wrote:'have' is generic possession, 'have with' is somewhere in the same building or on a trip - say you were in a hotel and it was in your room - and 'have on' is have, in your possession, about your person, right now.

I think this is a little like German "haben", "dabei haben", "bei sich haben"?

YngNghymru wrote:Does anyone else make a distinction between 'have', 'have with' and 'have on'? The distinction between 'have something' and 'have something on you' is a common one in BrE and probably in AmE as well, but to me, 'have' is generic possession, 'have with' is somewhere in the same building or on a trip - say you were in a hotel and it was in your room - and 'have on' is have, in your possession, about your person, right now.

Sounds right to me (I'm American).

Magb wrote:

Travis B. wrote:How I speak is not a speech impediment* ...

You post a lot interesting stuff, but I can't be the only one who gets tired while reading posts like this one. I think even you got confused by your own footnotes here (where's number 4?), so imagine how much it breaks the flow of reading for someone who isn't already on board your train of thought. Your paragraphs also tend to be a bit too long. Do continue posting about this stuff, but please try to organize your posts a bit better.

Not to mention his post was unnecessary. Finlay made a joke - there was no need for Travis to expound at great length on the nature of his accent, or the sociolinguistic issues thereof.

Also, Travis - for God's sake just make a recording. We don't care whether it's suitable for detailed analysis. We just want to hear you speak.

finlay wrote:

Travis B. wrote: * When I have spoken German or, when it had not gotten horribly rusty, Japanese, my pronounciation of English really does not affect such much, aside from tending to still aspirate fortis plosives in Japanese and still nasalizing vowels as if I were speaking English, whereas if how I spoke English were due to a speech impediment that would be a different story...

Perhaps I should have appended ":P". I do still want to actually hear you talk though; I try to pronounce what you've written in your transcription and it feels like I'm having difficulty swallowing. Or at least it does with the R and L, which I do realise is just the same but without contact/constriction at the alveolar ridge. It still sounds weird to me.

Well, people who are not linguists do at times say that Milwaukee dialect proper is "pronounced in the back of the mouth", so to speak...

Magb wrote:

Travis B. wrote:How I speak is not a speech impediment* ...

You post a lot interesting stuff, but I can't be the only one who gets tired while reading posts like this one. I think even you got confused by your own footnotes here (where's number 4?), so imagine how much it breaks the flow of reading for someone who isn't already on board your train of thought. Your paragraphs also tend to be a bit too long. Do continue posting about this stuff, but please try to organize your posts a bit better.

The footnotes are because I added such after the fact, and yes, I forgot footnote 4.

Boskobènet wrote:

Magb wrote:

Travis B. wrote:How I speak is not a speech impediment* ...

You post a lot interesting stuff, but I can't be the only one who gets tired while reading posts like this one. I think even you got confused by your own footnotes here (where's number 4?), so imagine how much it breaks the flow of reading for someone who isn't already on board your train of thought. Your paragraphs also tend to be a bit too long. Do continue posting about this stuff, but please try to organize your posts a bit better.

Not to mention his post was unnecessary. Finlay made a joke - there was no need for Travis to expound at great length on the nature of his accent, or the sociolinguistic issues thereof.

Sorry, I am used to people, including people at my workplace out here in Maryland, saying things to the effect of "I know someone from Wisconsin, and he doesn't sound like you", which in many ways due to the linguistic situation in Wisconsin being far, far more complex than one might think offhand, which in many ways is heavily driven by the sociolinguistics of the matter (which are actually even more intricate than what I wrote above, which is really a very brief synopsis thereof). Hence I felt the need to give a basic explanation of why I speak a much "stronger" dialect than one might expect, and why I do not sound like, say, some random person that someone knew from, say, Madison, Wisconsin.

Boskobènet wrote:Also, Travis - for God's sake just make a recording. We don't care whether it's suitable for detailed analysis. We just want to hear you speak.

Well, here is an example of my semi-careful speech I already have up; note that it is not really what I speak in everyday life, but rather how I tend to speak into a microphone.