The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

[TaylorS]

Another consonant cluster reduction study- How do you guys say "correctly"?

[ˈk̙ʰɹˤɛʔkɫi]

[TaylorS]

Winter and winner are both [ˈwɪ̃ɾɚˤ] ~ [wɪ̃.ɚˤ]

[Travis B.]

Winter and winner are both [ˈwɪ̃ɾɚˤ] ~ [wɪ̃.ɚˤ]

What I would really like to do is to work out the (approximate) diglosses of the Upper Midwest and Inland North, something that seems to not have been touched, e.g. Labov's work seems to indicate a rather homogeneous Inland North that fades somewhere in southern and central Wisconsin into a North Central group, while other work indicates that key features of the Inland North actually extend far further west than previously posited.

For instance, both of our lects are on one hand very different from General American in similar ways, while being similarly clearly descended from historical western New England dialects as GA is. Yet at the same time they differ in a number of very linguistically significant ways that imply that any future lects descended from the two, without crosstalk between the two, are going to be notably different.

Of course the first and most significant difference that has been already worked out is the nature of vowel length. Mine has demolished historical vowel length completely, not simply replacing it with allophonic vowel length, but in turn breaking down that system so as to produce which could likely be a full-fledged new phonemic vowel length system in the near future, if it is not already that. Yours completely conserves historical vowel length, on the other hand. It would be interesting to see where the isoglosses for a (potentially conservative or potentially degenerate) system of allophonic vowel length versus a conserved historical phonemic vowel length system lie, though, as as far as I can remember Viktor his phonemic vowel length, and he lives over in eastern Michigan. It would also be interesting to see just how far conservative or degenerate the allophonic vowel length systems in various areas are, i.e. on one hand do they still retain aspects of phonemic vowel length for certain phonemes (particularly /eɪ̯ oʊ̯/) or, on the other hand, have they developed consonant elision with retained vowel length as many Inland North varieties seem to have, resulting in the creation of new phonemic vowel length in places.

Another thing that would be interesting to work out is conservation versus preservation of consonant distinctions in various positions over space. My own dialect, for instance, has shown itself to be essentially as conservative as NAE dialects get when it comes to plosive distinctions, and while my specific variety does strongly tend towards plosive lenition and elision, it still uses vowels to maintain fortis/lenis distinctions even when the consonants with them have been lenited or elided. Likewise, it maintains other distinctions that are often lost elsewhere, such as between unstressed intervocalic /n/ and /nt/ as implicitly noted above, in that case even without relying on preceding vowel length, or between /s/ and /st/, where it relies on the apical/laminal distinction. So hence it would be really interesting to figure out the overall distribution of the conservation versus non-conservation of these various distinctions, particularly in everyday speech.

There are lot of other things of this sort that could be worked out in a thorough study of the dialects around the Upper Midwest and Inland North. Dammit, this makes me wish I actually lived there and that I actually had the time (and energy) to do this kind of thing...

[Travis B.]

How do you guys pronounce missus/Mrs.?

This comes to mind because I was in the store last night and someone from my receipt called me Mrs. B-----, or at least that is what I heard. It should be noted that this is a middle-aged to oldish African-American man speaking. I then said that I am /ˈmɪstər/ > [ˈmɪs̻t̻ʁ̩ˤː] B-----, emphasizing, all but aspirating, the [t̻] as I had used my ex's phone number to enter the store card instead of swiping it.

But then a moment latter, I realized that he had called me Mr. B----- but had pronounced it [ˈmɪsə]. This I had misheard as Mrs., as in my dialect in everyday speech that is commonly shortened to /ˈmɪsɪː/ > [ˈmɪsɨː] from its longer form /ˈmɪsɪz/ > [ˈmɪsɨːs].

So how do you guys pronounce this, and in particular, do any of you have this elision of final /z/ therein?

On that note, does anyone else here elide the final /z/ in is as /ˈɪː/ > [ˈɪː] before sibilants or possibly some other consonants (e.g. I sometimes find myself doing it before /tr/)?

For that matter, does anyone have similar final /z/ elision in any particular words or as part of any generalized phonological process?

[----]

Syllable final fricative elision is a widespread feature of AAVE, at least where I live. Was is pronounced [wɐː] or [wə] when unstressed, and is can even appear as something like [ɨə̯]
AAVE is fucking cool

But to actually answer your question, for me Mrs. is [mɨs(ɨ)z] with like a syllabic /z/ sometimes.

[Travis B.]

I do notice that I do similarly have /ˈwʌː/ > [ˈwʌː] for was, but again, only before sibilant fricatives and not all sibilants along with /tr/,

[jmcd]

I say Mrs like this: [ˈmɨsez].

[Wattmann]

[mɨsɪz] or somesuch. Nothing far too radical. The [ɪ] part does give me a bit of a thought: it's far more schwa-like than the normative Wikipedian tapes of it.

[finlay]

what's with all you people who say you have [ɨ]... in English?

i have like [mɪsɪz] or something.

[Wattmann]

what's with all you people who say you have [ɨ]... in English?

i have like [mɪsɪz] or something.

It's not [ɨ] as such, but it's a centralised [ɪ] or somesuch phenomenon.

[Travis B.]

what's with all you people who say you have [ɨ]... in English?

Umm, that's the schwi, a near-close unrounded central vowel, which exists in English dialects that have two or three centralized, reduced vowels (i.e. most).

Marking it as [ɨ] is simply marking it as what it is, considering that that symbol in IPA does not normally distinguish near-close and close positions when not explicitly stated.

[Travis B.]

Now, what does interest me is people having the schwi in the first syllable of Mrs....

[*Ceresz]

what's with all you people who say you have [ɨ]... in English?

Umm, that's the schwi, a near-close unrounded central vowel, which exists in English dialects that have two or three centralized, reduced vowels (i.e. most).

Marking it as [ɨ] is simply marking it as what it is, considering that that symbol in IPA does not normally distinguish near-close and close positions when not explicitly stated.

And it's just easier to write [ɨ] instead of [ɨ̞]/[ɪ̈] all the time. There is also the unofficial [ᵻ].

[Travis B.]

Am I the only person who finds seemingly odd things in their speech, compared to the de facto standard one is used to, and wonders just how widespread these things actually are, considering that they almost certainly are not simply oddities of one's own speech?

(In my own case there are a number of potential layers over which particular features can be spread that often highly restrict it and complicate it. For instance, even in the suburb I grew up not all the features I mark are universal, with multiple overlapping layers being present in a small area, while other features center over Wisconsin, Minnesota, and North Dakota, while other features center over the Inland North, while other non-standard features I mark extend over very much of the northern eastern US from actually hearing people there speak.

Of course, I am used to such a level of variation on a small scale that each of the four members of my immediate family speaks English with a noticeably different accent, but with the parents being more standard in their speech than either me or my sister, even though two of us grew up in the same house and three in the same suburb, and all in the same general part of the same state.)

[sarcasmo]

what's with all you people who say you have [ɨ]... in English?

Umm, that's the schwi, a near-close unrounded central vowel, which exists in English dialects that have two or three centralized, reduced vowels (i.e. most).

Marking it as [ɨ] is simply marking it as what it is

Exactly. To me, [ɪ] sounds like English speakers' approximation of Latin/Romance actual . So when people transcribe, say, quality as [ˈkwaləɾi] (although I have [ɨ] in the second syllable), I think they're just sacrificing accuracy for easy of writing/reading; the last syllable definitely doesn't sound the same as the s in It. intimissimi [inti'mis:imi]. Similarly, a contributing factor toward an American accent in Italian, for example, is [ɪ] for <i> /i/ (worse still is [ɨ] in unstressed positions, but nobody who's really making an effort or is conscious of their pronunciation does this).

Basically, I think the /i/s you hear in English are really [ɪ]s, so /ɪ/ is realized as [ɨ] to maintain the distinction. (All this relates only to my own pronunciation and the pronunciations of speakers I interact with, obviously; I can't claim to know much of anything about British/Australian English).

Now, what does interest me is people having the schwi in the first syllable of Mrs....

I sometimes have the same vowel in both syllables, so I think it would be transcribed [mɨsɨz]~[mɨsəz].

[Travis B.]

what's with all you people who say you have [ɨ]... in English?

Umm, that's the schwi, a near-close unrounded central vowel, which exists in English dialects that have two or three centralized, reduced vowels (i.e. most).

Marking it as [ɨ] is simply marking it as what it is

Exactly. To me, [ɪ] sounds like English speakers' approximation of Latin/Romance actual . So when people transcribe, say, quality as [ˈkwaləɾi] (although I have [ɨ] in the second syllable), I think they're just sacrificing accuracy for easy of writing/reading; the last syllable definitely doesn't sound the same as the s in It. intimissimi [inti'mis:imi]. Similarly, a contributing factor toward an American accent in Italian, for example, is [ɪ] for <i> /i/ (worse still is [ɨ] in unstressed positions, but nobody who's really making an effort or is conscious of their pronunciation does this).

Basically, I think the /i/s you hear in English are really [ɪ]s, so /ɪ/ is realized as [ɨ] to maintain the distinction. (All this relates only to my own pronunciation and the pronunciations of speakers I interact with, obviously; I can't claim to know much of anything about British/Australian English).

To me at least /ɪ/ has as clear alternation between [ɪ] and [ɨ], with the stressed vowel being noticeably fronter than the unstressed vowel, but not quite as far front as General American stressed /ɪ/. However my usual [ɪ] is still more central than it might be in some other English dialects, and is definitely centralized compared to Standard German /ɪ/, which I initially actually mapped to my native /i/ due to its relative frontness.

However, my /ɪr/ resulting from historical /ɪr/ and /iːr/, is always realized as [ɪ(ː)ʁˤ], with a much clearly front vowel than my /ɪ/ in any other position, to the point that the vowel in many way sounds like my /i/ and that I am tempted to actually rather describe it as /ir/ even though the vowel itself is near-close rather than close.

Now, what does interest me is people having the schwi in the first syllable of Mrs....

I sometimes have the same vowel in both syllables, so I think it would be transcribed [mɨsɨz]~[mɨsəz].

So what it seems is probably that your stressed and unstressed /ɪ/ are equally central, rather than having a clear front-central alternation as I myself have.

[Bob Johnson]

Umm, that's the schwi, a near-close unrounded central vowel, which exists in English dialects that have two or three centralized, reduced vowels (i.e. most).

{{cn}}

please give minimal pairs for /ɨ/~/ə/~whatever the third one is

[Travis B.]

Umm, that's the schwi, a near-close unrounded central vowel, which exists in English dialects that have two or three centralized, reduced vowels (i.e. most).

{{cn}}

Snark gets you nowhere. And if you are not merely being snarky, what are you trying to say?

And as for "citations needed" - it is often easy to just blindly question anything by asking for citations, which of course they will likely not have anything authoritative for on hand, as most people do not live in university libraries or have paid-for accounts for journals, which are usually horrifically expensive.

please give minimal pairs for /ɨ/~/ə/~whatever the third one is

The third is the schwo [ɵ]. My own dialect lacks it, only reducing /o/ to [ə(.w)] or preserving it as [o(.w)] when unstressed, but apparently some English dialects have this, and I personally do hear it sometimes in more conservative speech even though I do not tend to encounter it in Real Life.

And for your being - quite unjustifiedly - questioning, there are dialects that do merge all these, and yours might be one of these.

But that does not allow you merely say "I DON'T BELIEVE YOU!!!!11" That means nothing except that your fingers are in your ears. And if you truly do not believe something, you ought to be able to provide a suitable counterargument and say why you do believe; simply saying you believe means nothing, and simply saying there is a lack of citations for the reason mentioned above is simply completely inadequate.

One major problem here is that the distribution of these differ significantly in different English dialects. For instance, my dialect has turned many instances of /ə/, especially in /ən/, into /ɪ/, but conversely has changed quite a few instances of /ɪ/, especially in /ɪl/, into /ə/.

And as for minimal pairs, asking for pure minimal pairs is something that a naive first year linguistics student would do. As I am not one I am not going to satisfy your wish here.

That said, in formal speech for me the two readily contrast in initial positions, but in everyday speech many initial cases of these merge into one or the other. Particularly, in formal speech initial contrasts between /ən/ (e.g. annihilate) and /ɪn/ (e.g. intranet) and between /əl/ (e.g. align) and /ɪl/ (e.g. illustrate), but these tend to frequently collapse in everyday speech (even though it is preserved for me with illustrate, likely due to the effects of tertiary stress).

However, other areas contrasts do clearly exist are between /ək/ (e.g. accuse, woodchuck) and /ɪk/ (e.g. rickettsia, semantic) and between /əz/ (e.g. azalea, Rosa's) and /ɪz/ (e.g. roses, rose's, fascism) in any position in my dialect. Of course, this is definitely a "your mileage may vary area", considering how unstable these contrasts are crossdialectically in NAE.

[AnTeallach]

And as for "citations needed" - it is often easy to just blindly question anything by asking for citations, which of course they will likely not have anything authoritative for on hand, as most people do not live in university libraries or have paid-for accounts for journals, which are usually horrifically expensive.

But you made a rather strong claim, not just one about your own dialect but about "most" English dialects; for that, I'd like to know where you're getting your information from, and I don't think it's unreasonable to ask.

At least when dealing with British English, the vowel in question is usually just treated as an unstressed [ɪ]. Introspection of my own dialect doesn't suggest there's a significant quality difference between the unstressed vowel in "rabbit" (for example) and the stressed one in "bit".

[Travis B.]

And as for "citations needed" - it is often easy to just blindly question anything by asking for citations, which of course they will likely not have anything authoritative for on hand, as most people do not live in university libraries or have paid-for accounts for journals, which are usually horrifically expensive.

But you made a rather strong claim, not just one about your own dialect but about "most" English dialects; for that, I'd like to know where you're getting your information from, and I don't think it's unreasonable to ask.

At least when dealing with British English, the vowel in question is usually just treated as an unstressed [ɪ]. Introspection of my own dialect doesn't suggest there's a significant quality difference between the unstressed vowel in "rabbit" (for example) and the stressed one in "bit".

Okay, it might be a bit strong of an assertion to say that most English dialects actually clearly contrast two reduced vowels except in initial syllables, where it seems that the contrast is a bit stronger than elsewhere. The question then, though, is what is the exact mapping (with regard to [ə] versus [ɨ]) is in varieties where seemingly minimally contrasting environments cannot be found, or cannot be found except initially.

Ironically, the similarity of the two vowels phonologically is shown by how, indeed, the two merge as one or the other in many particular environments, as mentioned before, whereas the stressed [ɪ] does not behave this way vis-a-vis the stressed [ʌ].

And yes, I probably was biased by that my dialect contrasts two such vowels, albeit with some scrambling and loss of contrast in certain environments, and General American contrasts two or, conservatively, three such vowels, probably more than I should have (considering that my own dialect is in many ways an analogue of GA, for all its apparent differences), combined with the general assumption I have developed that anything that both my dialect and GA not under Inland North influence agree on likely applies to most of North America outside the South, traditional dialects on the East Coast, and the Maritime Provinces, i.e. areas with dialects descended from those of western New England and much of which is today said to be GA-speaking, whether or not that is properly true.

(Honestly, though, it is just that the blanket use of "citations needed", especially without further reasoning provided as to why, pisses me off, because it just provides an easy way to argue down anything where simply copying and pasting citations from Wikipedia will not do, for the practical reasons I mentioned before. If someone is to play that card, they ought to be willing to give citations for anything they say too.)

[finlay]

Considering what Jmcd wrote, I'd actually be more inclined to call the "Scottish /ɪ/" (which I think he is going for) something more like [ɘ] – it's lowered as well as centralized, as far as I can tell.

As for unstressed vowels, I'm never quite sure what to think with them, because I'm pretty sure I don't have [ə] for a word-final <a>; it's more like [ɐ] or [ʌ]. But I'd agree that "rabbit" and "bit" have the same vowel in them; just that one is stressed and the other isn't. But then I also get annoyed at the RP-esque practice of marking plural -es and past tense -ed as /ɪz/ and /ɪd/, because for me they have a schwa.

I certainly disagree that English has [ɪ] for /i/ and [ɨ] for /ɪ/ (sarcasmo). Maybe in your weirdo accent, but not mine. This is slightly marred by the fact that saying "it's really X" means nothing with IPA vowels, because the cardinal vowels are fake guidelines, some kind of socratic ideal that doesn't happen in the real world. (Also, the example you give, quality, is one that's very often transcribed with [ɪ] anyway, especially in RP and less so in AmE...)

The other reason I don't think English has [ɨ] is because I've heard [ɨ] from Welsh speakers (albeit a long time ago), and that sounded to me like my /u/, or [ʉ]. Perhaps they have it somewhat rounded or whatever, or perhaps it's because they actually have something more like the socratic ideal of IPA [ɨ].

[tezcatlip0ca]

I don't have the schwo, but I do have a schwe, in plurals and a few other words. A near-minimal pair, could be seven/Kevin/Evan [ˈsɛvɛ̽̃n/ˈkʰɛ̝və̝̃n/ˈɛvɜ̃n]

Edit: Forgot the aspiration

[jmcd]

Considering what Jmcd wrote, I'd actually be more inclined to call the "Scottish /ɪ/" (which I think he is going for) something more like [ɘ] – it's lowered as well as centralized, as far as I can tell.

Sure I'll go with that thanks. I seem to have it in only some particular contexts but I'm not sure which. I think labials might affect it; I'm not sure.

[Rui]

Sorry to bring this back, but it is a really nifty thread. I have two things:

1) privatize (privatise for you non-Americans ) vs. private eyes
2) Keynesian

1) for me, there's some kind of difference that comes up because of difference in breaking up syllables. 'privatize' almost definitely has a [tʰ], while 'private eyes' has something like [ɾ]. 'privatize' is /ˈpɹaɪ.və.ˌtaɪz/, while 'private eyes' is /ˈpɹaɪ.vət.ˌaɪz/... /t/ as a coda consonant becomes [t̚~ʔ] IMD, but because of the following vowel, becomes a flap instead, whereas the secondarily-stressed /t/ in 'privatize' becomes aspirated, or at least pronounced as a full [t]

2) I always thought it was /ˈkiːn.zi.ən/ (following the pronunciation of 'Keynes' and also thus morpheme boundaries) but I've also heard /ki.ˈniː.ʒən/ by teachers and other serious people (following various demonyms and whatnot that end in -esian, thus breaking up the morpheme boundary)...and Wikipedia has /ˈkeɪn.zi.ən/ (was his surname pronounced /keɪnz/ somewhere?)

[Bob Johnson]

and Wikipedia has /ˈkeɪn.zi.ən/ (was his surname pronounced /keɪnz/ somewhere?)

Yes, inside his mouth. Presumably in his home too.