- ([info]entangledbank) wrote,
@ 2004-08-23 19:26:00
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Current mood: apathetic
Current music:Prokofiev, Piano Concerto No. 2: Yefim Bronfman

Today I wrote two or three paragraphs on the Thing (I'm afraid to look in case it was only one), which is a lot more than in the past two weeks. It's a nice evening out, pleasantly cool. It's almost as if I'm not quite as depressed today, so fuelled with some Guinness I might go back and see if I can write a few paragraphs more. (Edit: No I can't.)

I heard a bloke in the supermarket say ['emti] and a barrier crumbled. I'd thought phonology was the safe, easy, boring option I'd turned my back on. But why isn't it *['em?i]? The lecturer span us some story about weak foot positions, being the reason why it's glottalled in ['ba?@] and ['wIn?@]. But why not in ['emti] or ['ma:st@]? The whole edifice of phonology is probably just as unfounded as that of syntax; they just hide it better because most of phonology seems easy to understand.


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[info]foxfour
2004-08-23 11:49 am UTC (link)
...easy to understand and Scientifically Measurable, perhaps?

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[info]q_pheevr
2004-08-23 11:52 am UTC (link)

If phonology seems easy, then you're doing it wrong.

I'd need more data to make proper sense of the glottalisation patterns, but I'm guessing it has to do with where the syllable boundary is. In ['ba?@] and ['wIn?@], the /t/ [?] is at least potentially ambisyllabic, while in ['ma:st@], the /t/ [t] belongs only to the onset of the second syllable. Not sure about empty, though; how does the relevant dialect pronounce exempt?

One potentially non-coincidental thing, though, is that it looks like the glo?al stop is showing up exactly where North American varieties would have flapping. (Many North American speakers would have a nasalised flap for the /nt/ sequence in winter, but [mt] in empty).

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[info]entangledbank
2004-08-23 12:18 pm UTC (link)
Yes, but the thing is 'ambisyllabic' doesn't really mean anything. Well, doesn't explain anything. It's needed in my dialect for words like 'arrow', 'borrow', where the checked vowel can't end a syllable, but nor can [r]. And I think the same is true of a glottalling accent, where 'butter' has a checked first syllable but it seems to end in coda [?]. But (a) this is just a description of the facts, not an explanation; and (b) Harris is a great generalizer and abstracter and gave us a unifying explanation in terms of foot position: [th] in stressed onset, else [?].

Argh, I bet I know what he'd say here. [nt] is a possible coda, but [mt] isn't, so it's [m.t] with a dull vowel... and [s] is special cos... I'VE BEEN HAD.

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[info]entangledbank
2004-08-23 12:20 pm UTC (link)
Phonology was easy. I was breezing through it. I was breezing through the advanced classes at the same time. I couldn't believe how difficult other people found it, and though I like it I didn't think there was much challenge in it compared to the hard problems. :)

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wedding dress
(Anonymous)
2006-03-24 12:52 am UTC (link)
Interesting I was looking for some answer and you gave them to me http://wedding-dress2.cars-search.org/

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