Re[4]: [tied] Re: American dialects, correction

At 4:46:56 PM on Thursday, February 5, 2004,
enlil@... wrote:

> Brian:

>> I'm not sure that this is a direct consequence of its
>> being a loanword, though: I hear it with secondary stress
>> on the second syllable, ['la,tHej], and I suspect that
>> it's this that blocks flapping. (Of course the stress
>> pattern may be because it's a loanword.)

> Why secondary stress?

Presumably because it's marked foreign. But I don't think
that it's the foreignness itself that blocks flapping, but
rather the stress pattern.

> Nothing stops "t" from being tapped in "brittle".

Which doesn't have secondary stress on the second syllable.

Brian