The Innovative Usage Thread

[Whimemsz]

1. What's the distribution of ɹ > ɾ / θ_ in AmE?

Only among recent immigrants from lowland Scotland.

I doubt it because that would be more likely just ɹ > ɾ.

Also it's false because I hear the same thing fairly often (I live in the Houston area too). It's a regular feature of some people's pronunciations too, not just a one-time thing.

[Nortaneous]

What is this?

1. What's the distribution of ɹ > ɾ / θ_ in AmE?

Only among recent immigrants from lowland Scotland.

No, I've heard it as a regular feature from native speakers of AmE.

[äreo]

What is this?

Prepositionless locatives, in line with things like 'the places we've been' instead of 'the places we've been at/to'; I guess she's applied that to all locative phrases, thus 'at Macy's' 'Macy's' and 'out on the island' 'out the island'. Interesting.
In fact, that first sentence ('I never shopped Macy's') is pretty much grammatical for me (save the use of the simple past and not auxiliary '-'ve') - it's kinda like (but not the same as) 'eating Mexican' or 'buying cheap'. I've also heard 'buying supermarket'.

[Chagen]

About the "there're/there's" discussion: am I the ONLY person here who uses rhotacized vowels? Who the hell pronounces "there" with a final retroflex trill, alveolar tap, or the rhotc approximant?

[----]

I've been watching a lot of Let's Play's by this certain guy lately, and he has a pretty interesting pronunciation of /l/. I'm no expert on analyzing phones but it seems like this phoneme has quite a strong pharyngeal component to it in his speech. It's especially noticeable in words like 'play' where it's unvoiced and appears as a uvular fricative or something. I'm not sure how widespread this is, but to me it's quite striking. Does anyone know of dialects where the English /l/ appears as pharyngeal/uvular in places other than at the end of words?

[TomHChappell]

About the "there're/there's" discussion: am I the ONLY person here who uses rhotacized vowels? Who the hell pronounces "there" with a final retroflex trill, alveolar tap, or the rhotc approximant?

I for one can neither hear nor pronounce the difference between
vowel + retroflex-approximant
and
rhotacized-vowel
in my 'lect of English.

To me the "bunched <r>" sounds like a schwa. A non-rhotic speaker's <there> sounds like /ðejə/ or /ðeə/ or something to me.

[Ser]

I've noticed that people here in Vancouver pronounce "Japanese" [ˈdʒap(ə)ˌnɪiz] pretty much universally, even though "/ˌdʒæpəˈniːz/" is what you usually find in dictionaries. So far, people I've told that dictionaries usually say that "Japanese" supposedly rhymes with "Chinese" (which they do pronounce [tʃʰaɪˈnɪiz]) have told me that's weird. What does the ZBB say?

[Yng]

I've noticed that people here in Vancouver pronounce "Japanese" [ˈdʒap(ə)ˌnɪiz] pretty much universally, even though "/ˌdʒæpəˈniːz/" is what you usually find in dictionaries. So far, people I've told that dictionaries usually say that "Japanese" supposedly rhymes with "Chinese" (which they do pronounce [tʃʰaɪˈnɪiz]) have told me that's weird. What does the ZBB say?

I would say /dʒapaˈniːz/, I think I've heard the other from Americans, though. I've noticed a similar thing with <Arabic>, actually - although this may be a non-nativism, there are a lot of people who pronounce it /əˈrabɪk/.

[Ser]

Nope, I've only heard [ˈɛ.ɹə.bɪk] over here, which is what you'd expect from what dictionaries say too.

[Yng]

Nope, I've only heard [ˈɛ.ɹə.bɪk] over here, which is what you'd expect from what dictionaries say too.

[ɛ]??? Is that like, NCVS or something?

[Bob Johnson]

Nope, I've only heard [ˈɛ.ɹə.bɪk] over here, which is what you'd expect from what dictionaries say too.

[ɛ]??? Is that like, NCVS or something?

No, marry/merry/Mary merger

[Yng]

Ahh, of course. Silly of me.

[finlay]

I've noticed that people here in Vancouver pronounce "Japanese" [ˈdʒap(ə)ˌnɪiz] pretty much universally, even though "/ˌdʒæpəˈniːz/" is what you usually find in dictionaries. So far, people I've told that dictionaries usually say that "Japanese" supposedly rhymes with "Chinese" (which they do pronounce [tʃʰaɪˈnɪiz]) have told me that's weird. What does the ZBB say?

The second. But however you stress it, there's a stress shift between "Jəpan" and "Japənese". I ought to go and find some Americans and listen to how they say it.

[clawgrip]

The -ese suffix as a general rule tends to take stress when it is added to a word. I've never heard anyone put stress on the first syllable of Japanese, though I guess I also haven't heard people from Vancouver say 'Japanese'.

[Rui]

Ah, good old -ly. One of my friends updated his facebook status to "self-medicationly cured myself in 2 days!" Apparently -ly can also attach to nouns...

(note- he's a native Portuguese speaker because he's from Mozambique, but he speaks English extremely fluently, and learned it from very young, so he's practically a native speaker of English)

[äreo]

Ah, good old -ly. One of my friends updated his facebook status to "self-medicationly cured myself in 2 days!" Apparently -ly can also attach to nouns...

(note- he's a native Portuguese speaker because he's from Mozambique, but he speaks English extremely fluently, and learned it from very young, so he's practically a native speaker of English)

Yeah, sounds fine to me. I wouldn't think much of it if I heard it from someone around here. Suffixes like -y and -ly are, I reckon, a lot more productive than standard written English would have us think.

[Solarius]

About the "there're/there's" discussion: am I the ONLY person here who uses rhotacized vowels? Who the hell pronounces "there" with a final retroflex trill, alveolar tap, or the rhotc approximant?

You probably have some sort of southern accent, which, I would wager, is uncommon among ZBBers.

[Herr Dunkel]

About the "there're/there's" discussion: am I the ONLY person here who uses rhotacized vowels? Who the hell pronounces "there" with a final retroflex trill, alveolar tap, or the rhotc approximant?

You probably have some sort of southern accent, which, I would wager, is uncommon among ZBBers.

He's Texan

[Travis B.]

Ah, good old -ly. One of my friends updated his facebook status to "self-medicationly cured myself in 2 days!" Apparently -ly can also attach to nouns...

(note- he's a native Portuguese speaker because he's from Mozambique, but he speaks English extremely fluently, and learned it from very young, so he's practically a native speaker of English)

Yeah, sounds fine to me. I wouldn't think much of it if I heard it from someone around here. Suffixes like -y and -ly are, I reckon, a lot more productive than standard written English would have us think.

I for one am used to -y being extremely productive in speech, only leaking out into otherwise standard written English in things like advertising-speak; as for -ly I cannot say that I am used to it attaching to nouns, but I am used to it attaching to just about any adjective, especially any ending in -al, with it attaching to nouns through -ally.

[Jetboy]

I've noticed that people here in Vancouver pronounce "Japanese" [ˈdʒap(ə)ˌnɪiz] pretty much universally, even though "/ˌdʒæpəˈniːz/" is what you usually find in dictionaries. So far, people I've told that dictionaries usually say that "Japanese" supposedly rhymes with "Chinese" (which they do pronounce [tʃʰaɪˈnɪiz]) have told me that's weird. What does the ZBB say?

I think I have both, to some extent. For example, I always say "The /'tʃain.iz/ Exclusion Act of 1882", but always "/tʃhai.'niz/ food". "Japanese" seems to more usually have final stress ("I don't speak /dʒap.ǝ.'niz/"), but can have initial stress in the right context: "I don't speak /'dʒap.ǝ.niz/ or /'tʃain.iz/". I'm quite confused now that I think about it.

Edit: Now that I've thought about it, I'd say I give "Japanese" initial stress most of the time when it's an adjective, and final stress when talking about the people or the language.

Similarly, I noticed recently that "defense" and "offense", for me at least, are limited to sports meanings with initial stress. Final stress for "defense" can kind of work talking about sports, but I feel like that's more an extension of the "defense against something" sense, and finally stressed "offense" is something completely different.

[Ser]

Today in an Arabic-language forum I saw people self-censuring by giving typing directions of the words they hid. Say, if you wanted to write كنت هناك "I was there", you would codify it as ";kj ikh;", since those are exactly the same keystrokes on an English keyboard (and Arabic physical keyboards always have English letters printed alongside Arabic).

Also, why would a forum forbid users to copy text off posts?

[----]

I just watched this video where the guy talking has /ŋ/ or /ɴ/ for final /l/ in English, and it was really jarring to hear; at some points I couldn't tell what word he was saying. Has anyone else ever heard this pronunciation before?

Here's the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTrM-UVcgBY

[Bob Johnson]

I just watched this video where the guy talking has /ŋ/ or /ɴ/ for final /l/ in English, and it was really jarring to hear; at some points I couldn't tell what word he was saying. Has anyone else ever heard this pronunciation before?

Time index for the impatient: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTrM-UVcgBY&t=40s

Also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTrM-UVcgBY&t=1m50s

It's definitely nasal. I thought he said "tongues" at first instead of "tiles". I'm not sure if it's coarticulated with an actual L or what though -- maybe his dark L is just nasalized.

[Boşkoventi]

I just watched this video where the guy talking has /ŋ/ or /ɴ/ for final /l/ in English, and it was really jarring to hear; at some points I couldn't tell what word he was saying. Has anyone else ever heard this pronunciation before?

Time index for the impatient: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTrM-UVcgBY&t=40s

Also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTrM-UVcgBY&t=1m50s

It's definitely nasal. I thought he said "tongues" at first instead of "tiles". I'm not sure if it's coarticulated with an actual L or what though -- maybe his dark L is just nasalized.

I think the word is actually "tiling(s)", as in the title of the video, but still with a really weird /l/ -- so it's something like ["t_hA(I).M\INz] ([ˈtʰɑ(ɪ).ɰɪŋz]).

[linguoboy]

My student worker calls videocassette tapes "VCRs". I'm guessing by analogy with "DVDs" <=> "DVD [player]".