tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post5835679390603909899..comments2024-03-17T09:14:13.950+00:00Comments on John Wells’s phonetic blog: clossal slebsJohn Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-22359882486354934362011-12-29T14:53:42.817+00:002011-12-29T14:53:42.817+00:00Gillian Brown does indeed discuss elision of (amon...Gillian Brown does indeed discuss elision of (among other things) vowels in her <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Listening-English-Applied-Linguistics-Language/dp/0582052971/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325163412&sr=8-1" rel="nofollow">Listening to Spoken English</a>. But her examples are generally more extreme than simple elision of <b>ə</b>.<br /><br />One with <b>ə</b> and more elided is <b>[ˈgʌbm̩n̩t]</b> <i>government</i>. Another is <b>[ˈækʃlɪ]</b> <i>actually</i>. From my memory of her lectures, I believe her favourite is <b>[ˈstrɔnri]</b> <i>extraordinary</i>. Or rather her second-favourite elision after <i>satisfying the knees of the working people</i> — i.e. the <b>needs</b>.David Crosbiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01858358459416955921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-89334093301756847442011-12-08T18:19:05.570+00:002011-12-08T18:19:05.570+00:00My mother's second name was Beatrice, always p...My mother's second name was Beatrice, always pronounced [bitris], so that takes us back to 1900.Sidney Woodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01138711082469220983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-11361625792440877312011-12-08T16:17:21.291+00:002011-12-08T16:17:21.291+00:00I know a Beatrice who pronounces her name [bitrɪs]...I know a <i>Beatrice</i> who pronounces her name [bitrɪs]. I do it too when speaking to or of her, but it's hard, because I am very used to [biətrɪs] for everyone else. (That's a trisyllable, not a bisyllable with a diphthong.)<br /><br />In one of her introductions to the <i>Divine Comedy</i> (there are three, one for each cantica), Dorothy Sayers says that she has used "Beatrice" throughout in such a way that those who pronounce it as a trisyllable in the English fashion, or as a tetrasyllable in the Italian, can work it into the meter equally well. In the few cases where an extra syllable would be metrically impossible, she has used "Beatrix" instead.John Cowanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11452247999156925669noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-26503045118222809032011-12-07T02:31:49.899+00:002011-12-07T02:31:49.899+00:00I've known at least one Felicity whose name wa...I've known at least one Felicity whose name was shortened to <b>ˈflɪsɪti</b>. Or perhaps that should be <br /><b>fˈflɪsɪti</b> with more-or-less syllabic <b>f</b>.David Crosbiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01858358459416955921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-84767009138658701122011-12-06T17:08:48.440+00:002011-12-06T17:08:48.440+00:00Lipman's example "giraffe" got me th...Lipman's example "giraffe" got me thinking about how this interacts with the /dr/ to /dʒr/ and /tr/ to /tʃr/ shifts I have.<br /><br />I think "giraffe" can in principle end up starting off like "draft". (I'm not sure that the initial clusters are exactly the same, but they're very similar.) On the other hand I'm sure "terrific", with initial /tər/, can't end up starting like "triffid". <br /><br />Words like "factory", where the loss of the schwa has been lexicalised for me, do feel like they have /tʃ/: I'm inclined to transcribe /ˈfaktʃrɪ/ etc. Words where the schwa loss hasn't been lexicalised, like "moderate", generally don't, but "restaurant" is an exception for some reason: that has an affricate even when it has three syllables.JHJhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03257258313943639485noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-79114318316947409272011-12-06T15:36:03.483+00:002011-12-06T15:36:03.483+00:00+1 to most of Lipman's examples, but not suppo...+1 to most of Lipman's examples, but not <i>support</i>, maybe just because there is a minimal pair there.John Cowanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11452247999156925669noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-51180658526743792332011-12-06T15:15:27.941+00:002011-12-06T15:15:27.941+00:00John, aren't all your examples, except sleb, g...John, aren't all your examples, except sleb, good old muta cum liquida? And sleb is at least obstruent+liquid. <br /><br />I believe that seeing any reductions as the consequence of rapid tempo is too easy. Did latin 'augustum' become contempory [u] ('août') simply because the French speak fast? I doubt it. That's the result of a chain of orderly reductions according to phonological processes that were active during various intervening periods. <br /><br />Undoubtedly, 'sleb' takes less time to utter than 'celebrity', and can be seen as an increase in information rate (more morphemes/second). But 'sleb' itself can be pronounced slowly and carefully. An alternative explanation is that reductions like this are the result of active choice to skip sequences.<br /><br />Whatever the cause, schwa seems always to have had a low life expectancy between obstruents and liqids.Sidney Woodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01138711082469220983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-16538451945582549372011-12-06T14:12:09.045+00:002011-12-06T14:12:09.045+00:00Reminds me of hearing on the radio some years ago ...Reminds me of hearing on the radio some years ago a report about the Commonwealth Games and the performance of the /ˈkneɪdɪən ˈknuɪsts/Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-5768792037998845232011-12-06T12:17:30.457+00:002011-12-06T12:17:30.457+00:00Consider also words beginning with a bare schwa li...Consider also words beginning with a bare schwa like <i>about</i>, which often is [baʊt] <i>'bout</i>, I think we could generalize this to "even schwa can be reduced in unstressed initial syllables in colloquial speech", with a caveat that an initial consonant cluster make it less likely.Dirckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01042165614834628133noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-43797687181067779552011-12-06T11:54:04.111+00:002011-12-06T11:54:04.111+00:00Perhaps it is meant to rhyme with pleb.Perhaps it is meant to rhyme with pleb.PeterThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03810337732922025175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-19575383632010186922011-12-06T11:09:49.327+00:002011-12-06T11:09:49.327+00:00I think at least part of the problem here is tryin...I think at least part of the problem here is trying to represent a gradient process using an essentially binary segmental transcription (where either something occurs, or it doesn't). I suspect many of the schwas following voiceless obstruents (as in e.g. <i>career</i>) will get devoiced in more rapid styles. Differentiating between a "devoiced schwa" and plosion will always be somewhat arbitrary...wjarekhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07871668374161722713noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-17796158605269912852011-12-06T09:45:25.354+00:002011-12-06T09:45:25.354+00:00I'm not sure reduction is really that much rar...I'm not sure reduction is really that much rarer in words like <i>career/Korea</i> or <i>giraffe</i>, even despite the resulting uncommon cluster in the latter. <i>B(a)lloon</i> comes to my mind, too, and certainly <i>suppose</i>, nearly lexified.<br /><br />Is there a difference in aspiration between <i>sport</i> and reduced <i>support</i>?Phillip Mindenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16801818752833289089noreply@blogger.com