Linguistic Miscellany Thread

[anteallach]

What are features of your native language that, despite being part of the standard variety pertinant to one's location, sound distinctly accented to you?

I ask because General American proper lacks raising of PRICE and START and palatalization/affrication in words like restaurant, history, and factory, but anyone who lacks any of these (even in high registers) sounds distinctly foreign (as in foreign to the Great Lakes region) to me, much more so than other features such as a lack of the NCVS or even using y'all.

Does it? I mean, I have that (well, affrication anyway) and I'm not even American; I suspect it's more of an age thing than how "standard" the accent is. (Have you seen Geoff Lindsey's video on perceived affrication of /t/ and /d/ before /r/ and how it seems to have happened at more or less the same time in all of England, the US and Australia?)

My answer depends what you think the "standard variety" here is. If you think it's some sort of generic mild Northern English variety, then nothing; if you think it's RP/SSBE then there's obviously the TRAP/BATH split. And if you think it's someone like Boris Johnson <shudders> or Jacob Rees-Mogg <shudders some more> is "standard" then basically everything they say...

[Travis B.]

What are features of your native language that, despite being part of the standard variety pertinant to one's location, sound distinctly accented to you?

I ask because General American proper lacks raising of PRICE and START and palatalization/affrication in words like restaurant, history, and factory, but anyone who lacks any of these (even in high registers) sounds distinctly foreign (as in foreign to the Great Lakes region) to me, much more so than other features such as a lack of the NCVS or even using y'all.

Does it? I mean, I have that (well, affrication anyway) and I'm not even American; I suspect it's more of an age thing than how "standard" the accent is. (Have you seen Geoff Lindsey's video on perceived affrication of /t/ and /d/ before /r/ and how it seems to have happened at more or less the same time in all of England, the US and Australia?)

I'm well aware of affrication of /t/ and /d/ directly before /r/, which is very standard here in the US (some conservative speakers, though, do not merge /tr/ and /dr/ with /tʃr/ and /dʒr/ because they have [ʈʂʰɻ̥] and [ɖʐɻ]~[ʈʂɻ] for /tr/ and /dr/ respectively; this seems to be more of a feature of older speakers here, but I had this as a child before merging the two sets when I was in elementary school), but the key thing here is affrication of /tər/~/tɜr/ and palatalization of preceding /s/ not linked to historical /juː/ (in the dialect here restaurant, history, and factory there is no vowel elision between the historical /t/ and the /r/), and for some people also initial /dər/ (I have heard people here pronounce directory with [dʒ]~[tʃ]*, even though I normally do not do this myself).

* Edit: I myself affricate the historical /t/ in this word but not the /d/.

My answer depends what you think the "standard variety" here is. If you think it's some sort of generic mild Northern English variety, then nothing; if you think it's RP/SSBE then there's obviously the TRAP/BATH split. And if you think it's someone like Boris Johnson <shudders> or Jacob Rees-Mogg <shudders some more> is "standard" then basically everything they say...

In the case of the UK today I would normally consider SSBE to be the "standard variety".

[anteallach]

What are features of your native language that, despite being part of the standard variety pertinant to one's location, sound distinctly accented to you?

I ask because General American proper lacks raising of PRICE and START and palatalization/affrication in words like restaurant, history, and factory, but anyone who lacks any of these (even in high registers) sounds distinctly foreign (as in foreign to the Great Lakes region) to me, much more so than other features such as a lack of the NCVS or even using y'all.

Does it? I mean, I have that (well, affrication anyway) and I'm not even American; I suspect it's more of an age thing than how "standard" the accent is. (Have you seen Geoff Lindsey's video on perceived affrication of /t/ and /d/ before /r/ and how it seems to have happened at more or less the same time in all of England, the US and Australia?)

I'm well aware of affrication of /t/ and /d/ directly before /r/, which is very standard here in the US (some conservative speakers, though, do not merge /tr/ and /dr/ with /tʃr/ and /dʒr/ because they have [ʈʂʰɻ̥] and [ɖʐɻ]~[ʈʂɻ] for /tr/ and /dr/ respectively; this seems to be more of a feature of older speakers here, but I had this as a child before merging the two sets when I was in elementary school), but the key thing here is affrication of /tər/~/tɜr/ and palatalization of preceding /s/ not linked to historical /juː/ (in the dialect here restaurant, history, and factory there is no vowel elision between the historical /t/ and the /r/), and for some people also initial /dər/ (I have heard people here pronounce directory with [dʒ]~[tʃ]*, even though I normally do not do this myself).

* Edit: I myself affricate the historical /t/ in this word but not the /d/.

Yes, I realise that. I think what you're talking about is basically an aspect of the affrication of historic /t/ before /r/, connected with the fact that there's a lot of variation across English as to whether the vowel before the /r/ is elided in those words, and that it is similarly widespread (and so probably not especially non-GA). I elide the vowel in citation form in both history and factory but not in restaurant or victory and have affrication in all four.

Indeed, I think it's interesting how co-ordinated affrication of /t/ and /d/ seems to be across the English speaking world, at least as far as perception of the sound change is concerned.

[Travis B.]

Indeed, I think it's interesting how co-ordinated affrication of /t/ and /d/ seems to be across the English speaking world, at least as far as perception of the sound change is concerned.

My suspicion about words like restaurant, history, factory, and victory is that the vowel is unstable in many English dialects, resulting in affrication of post-elision /tr/, but this affrication underwent dialect borrowing into varieties where no such elision had occurred.

However, this does not quite explain sister, which in my idiolect (and my mother's idiolect) often undergoes affrication and palatalization, or mister, which I pronounced with affrication and palatalization as a kid which I have since lost (aside from the light palatalization without affrication of the /st/ cluster which is normal for that cluster medially in the dialect here).

[Nortaneous]

What are features of your native language that, despite being part of the standard variety pertinant to one's location, sound distinctly accented to you?

START [ɑɹ] ~ [äɹ] (as opposed to something like [ɒɹ])

[äɹ] for START feels too fronted to my ears -- it almost sounds as if someone is trying to pronounce TRAP followed by /r/ to me.

I once met a guy from Minnesota who nearly had [æɹ]. Very odd.

Descriptions of GenAm say START is [ɑɹ] with the same vowel as PALM, but I think the descriptions are wrong.

I was confused for the longest time about the cot-caught merger, because the descriptions always treat it as if the merged vowel is [ɑ], but in most cases it sounds to me like [ɔ]. Californians are always saying things like "Gawd" and so on.

I haven't taken spectrograms, but PALM is close to Finnish [ɑ]. THOUGHT has difficult allophony and I don't find it to map to anything in any other language I'm familiar with.

some conservative speakers, though, do not merge /tr/ and /dr/ with /tʃr/ and /dʒr/

What are /tʃr/ and /dʒr/? Are there minimal or near-minimal pairs with /tr/ and /dr/?

I have affrication in /tr/ but not /dr/.

[Travis B.]

START [ɑɹ] ~ [äɹ] (as opposed to something like [ɒɹ])

[äɹ] for START feels too fronted to my ears -- it almost sounds as if someone is trying to pronounce TRAP followed by /r/ to me.

I once met a guy from Minnesota who nearly had [æɹ]. Very odd.

Apparently a feature of many Inland North dialects is fronting of START, but I do not perceive any fronting of START at all in the dialect here. Indeed, proximity to /r/ inhibits fronting of following LOT (in addition to LOT merged with START as in tomorrow) here.

Descriptions of GenAm say START is [ɑɹ] with the same vowel as PALM, but I think the descriptions are wrong.

Conservative speakers here merge PALM and LOT as [a] when not in proximity to /r w h kw gw/, whereas START undergoes splitting into a low back unrounded rhotic and an open-mid back unrounded rhotic in the dialect here.

I was confused for the longest time about the cot-caught merger, because the descriptions always treat it as if the merged vowel is [ɑ], but in most cases it sounds to me like [ɔ]. Californians are always saying things like "Gawd" and so on.

I think it is much of the time [ɒ], like typical THOUGHT here (except that people from Kenosha, like my mother, and people from Chicagoland often have [ɑ] for THOUGHT). Pronouncing "Gawd" with [ɒ] is a feature of jocular speech here (whereas God normally has [a] here).

I haven't taken spectrograms, but PALM is close to Finnish [ɑ]. THOUGHT has difficult allophony and I don't find it to map to anything in any other language I'm familiar with.

I pronounce PALM (not what should be called FATHER, mind you, which is identical to LOT) with [ɑ] as essentially a compromise between conservative (for the dialect here) [a] and pronunciations with /l/, like my mother's.

some conservative speakers, though, do not merge /tr/ and /dr/ with /tʃr/ and /dʒr/

What are /tʃr/ and /dʒr/? Are there minimal or near-minimal pairs with /tr/ and /dr/?

I have affrication in /tr/ but not /dr/.

Just offhand, an example of /tʃr/ is thatch roof and an example of /dʒr/ is hedgerow. But yes, it is hard for me to think of actual examples, and I frankly can't even think of any near-minimal pairs, much the less actual minimal pairs.

[anteallach]

What are /tʃr/ and /dʒr/? Are there minimal or near-minimal pairs with /tr/ and /dr/?

I have affrication in /tr/ but not /dr/.

Just offhand, an example of /tʃr/ is thatch roof and an example of /dʒr/ is hedgerow. But yes, it is hard for me to think of actual examples, and I frankly can't even think of any near-minimal pairs, much the less actual minimal pairs.

They're dependent on schwa elision, but dangerous and natural are good examples for me. For me there is a complete merger and the sound in the middle of dangerous is the same as the one in the middle of wondrous.

(For someone with my accent it's not immediately obvious whether natural /ˈnat͡ʃrəl/ comes from an original /ˈnatərəl/ with by elision of the second vowel and affrication of /t/ before /r/, or an original /ˈnatjərəl/ with affrication of the /tj/ and then elision of the vowel. But based on dictionary transcriptions I believe the second is correct, and it also makes sense for there to have been a /j/ there.)

Here's the Geoff Lindsey video I mentioned: The SHTRONG survey: RESULTS. As I say, he shows the change to identifying the sounds before /r/ as /t͡ʃ/ and /d͡ʒ/ as happening at roughly the same time in all of Australia, New Zealand, England and Wales, the US and Canada, which is curious. (It's a bit later in Scotland, presumably due to different phonetics of /r/.) He also talks a bit about morpheme boundaries: apparently one difference between North America and the UK, Australia etc. is that we tend to have an affricate in beetroot (and indeed I do) but you don't.

[anteallach]

I haven't taken spectrograms, but PALM is close to Finnish [ɑ].

Finnish /ɑ/ always sounds very centralised to me (more like my TRAP than START in quality) so that surprises me a bit. I think it has been commented on before that the two Finnish low vowels can be hard to distinguish.

[zompist]

They're dependent on schwa elision, but dangerous and natural are good examples for me. For me there is a complete merger and the sound in the middle of dangerous is the same as the one in the middle of wondrous.

(For someone with my accent it's not immediately obvious whether natural /ˈnat͡ʃrəl/ comes from an original /ˈnatərəl/ with by elision of the second vowel and affrication of /t/ before /r/, or an original /ˈnatjərəl/ with affrication of the /tj/ and then elision of the vowel. But based on dictionary transcriptions I believe the second is correct, and it also makes sense for there to have been a /j/ there.)

Wait, what? Does any English accent anywhere have a [t] in "natural"? I don't know when /tu/ got fricativized, but I think that's a separate and far earlier sound change than the /tr/ > [tʃ] one.

[anteallach]

They're dependent on schwa elision, but dangerous and natural are good examples for me. For me there is a complete merger and the sound in the middle of dangerous is the same as the one in the middle of wondrous.

(For someone with my accent it's not immediately obvious whether natural /ˈnat͡ʃrəl/ comes from an original /ˈnatərəl/ with by elision of the second vowel and affrication of /t/ before /r/, or an original /ˈnatjərəl/ with affrication of the /tj/ and then elision of the vowel. But based on dictionary transcriptions I believe the second is correct, and it also makes sense for there to have been a /j/ there.)

Wait, what? Does any English accent anywhere have a [t] in "natural"? I don't know when /tu/ got fricativized, but I think that's a separate and far earlier sound change than the /tr/ > [tʃ] one.

Well Wiktionary actually does give a pronunciation with /t/, so I suppose somebody's accent does.

However, the point I was trying to make is that just from my /ˈnat͡ʃrəl/ in isolation you can't tell whether the affricate is due to the (recent) affrication of /t/ before /r/ or the (older) affrication of /tj/ before unstressed vowels, followed by elision of the second vowel. Once you look beyond my accent I believe the /tj/ explanation is indeed correct.

[Travis B.]

Natural and dangerous in quick speech (but not slow speech) are indeed examples of /tʃr/ and /dʒr/ for me, and I merge them with /tr/ and /dr/. I do not affricate the /tr/ in beetroot but I do palatalize and affricate the /str/ in restroom and I affricate the /dr/ in bedroom. Note that I do not affricate the /dər/ in federal or Frederick even when I elide the schwa (which I do outside very careful speech), and I frequently instead realize them with [ʁˤː].

[Travis B.]

They're dependent on schwa elision, but dangerous and natural are good examples for me. For me there is a complete merger and the sound in the middle of dangerous is the same as the one in the middle of wondrous.

(For someone with my accent it's not immediately obvious whether natural /ˈnat͡ʃrəl/ comes from an original /ˈnatərəl/ with by elision of the second vowel and affrication of /t/ before /r/, or an original /ˈnatjərəl/ with affrication of the /tj/ and then elision of the vowel. But based on dictionary transcriptions I believe the second is correct, and it also makes sense for there to have been a /j/ there.)

Wait, what? Does any English accent anywhere have a [t] in "natural"? I don't know when /tu/ got fricativized, but I think that's a separate and far earlier sound change than the /tr/ > [tʃ] one.

Well Wiktionary actually does give a pronunciation with /t/, so I suppose somebody's accent does.

What, people in Wales who never had [ɪw] > [juː]?

[anteallach]

Natural and dangerous in quick speech (but not slow speech) are indeed examples of /tʃr/ and /dʒr/ for me, and I merge them with /tr/ and /dr/. I do not affricate the /tr/ in beetroot but I do palatalize and affricate the /str/ in restroom and I affricate the /dr/ in bedroom. Note that I do not affricate the /dər/ in federal or Frederick even when I elide the schwa (which I do outside very careful speech), and I frequently instead realize them with [ʁˤː].

It seems to me that in for affrication in a word where there's a schwa between the consonant and the /r/ in citation form (e.g. restaurant) the general rule is that this does not happen and the handful of words where it does are exceptions. Both federal and Frederick do have the schwa in citation form for me and they fit with the pattern of not having affrication; in fact other than restaurant all the exceptions I can think of to that rule have a /k/ immediately before the affected consonant.

Likewise for affrication across morpheme boundaries I think the cases where it does happen (bedroom, beetroot) are exceptional. Frequent use may be a factor here, which would explain why you have it in restroom and I don't; I don't really use that word at all.

[lëtzeshark]

Miscellany: I'm visiting Portugal for work, and what's quite marked during my stay is how rather... different European Portuguese sounds to how it's written. Which is funny to me, because I can decipher written Portuguese without too much issue. (Just with some unusual word choices, like segunda-feira for Monday and vermelho for red.) Speaking, on the other hand...

[zompist]

Miscellany: I'm visiting Portugal for work, and what's quite marked during my stay is how rather... different European Portuguese sounds to how it's written.

Wait till you hear Brazilian...

[Travis B.]

Miscellany: I'm visiting Portugal for work, and what's quite marked during my stay is how rather... different European Portuguese sounds to how it's written.

Wait till you hear Brazilian...

I thought Brazilian Portuguese, aside from its affrication of /t d/ before /i/, was closer to its spelling pronunciation-wise than European Portuguese.

[jal]

I thought Brazilian Portuguese, aside from its affrication of /t d/ before /i/, was closer to its spelling pronunciation-wise than European Portuguese.

There's more going on in BP, but at least they don't compress everything to death.


JAL

[Qwynegold]

I looked into what part of speech because is, and apparently it's an adverb in both English, Swedish and Finnish. Can anyone explain why? Is it because it starts an adverbial clause? But then I don't understand why these clauses would be adverbial clauses. What about in the following example:

-Why is that man holding his arm behind his back?
-Because he has just stolen a watch.

Is this still an adverb and an adverbial clause? If so, what is it modifying?

[bradrn]

I looked into what part of speech because is, and apparently it's an adverb in both English, Swedish and Finnish. Can anyone explain why?

At least in English, ‘adverb’ is traditionally a catch-all category in which to dump any word which doesn’t obviously fit in any of the other word classes. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything more than that.

(As for how I’d analyse it, my first thought is that it seems to behave the same way as other sentential conjunctions like ‘and’ and ‘but’ — despite what the traditional grammarians say, those can begin a sentence too. Not 100% sure though.)

EDIT: no, you can say ‘it’s because …’ but not, say, *‘it’s and …’. Perhaps it’s more comparable to other adverbial-clause introducers like ‘after’ or ‘though’, as you implied.

[zompist]

I looked into what part of speech because is, and apparently it's an adverb in both English, Swedish and Finnish. Can anyone explain why?

At least in English, ‘adverb’ is traditionally a catch-all category in which to dump any word which doesn’t obviously fit in any of the other word classes. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything more than that.

Unfortunately true.

An adverb is supposed to be something that modifies the verb, verb phrase, or sentence— and that's already pretty vague— but it's a stretch to say that "because" is doing that. (Oh, and they can modify an adjective, "too bad". Or an NP, "even the Knicks". More evidence of the trash-bin nature of the category.)

(As for how I’d analyse it, my first thought is that it seems to behave the same way as other sentential conjunctions like ‘and’ and ‘but’ — despite what the traditional grammarians say, those can begin a sentence too. Not 100% sure though.)

Yeah, the prototypical usage of "because" is in expressions like "I went to the bank because I needed coins." Semantically, it's the explaining the connection between two sentences, which is what a conjunction does.

EDIT: no, you can say ‘it’s because …’ but not, say, *‘it’s and …’. Perhaps it’s more comparable to other adverbial-clause introducers like ‘after’ or ‘though’, as you implied.

There's a kind of unmapped wasteland in between adverbs, conjunctions, and prepositions; probably we need better terms.

"After" is normally a preposition ("after noon"), but can take an S instead "after he left". "Though" seems like a clear conjunction.

I'm not sure offhand why your "it's and..." doesn't work. More precisely, I'm not surprised at that, but I'd have to think about why some conjunctions (?) allow it and some don't.