Re: [tied] -osyo 4 (was: Nominative Loss. A strengthened theory?)

On Sat, 24 Apr 2004 02:50:29 -0700 (PDT),
enlil@... wrote:

>> On Sat, 24 Apr 2004 03:32:34 +0000, Richard Wordingham
>
>Erh, let's compare Miguel's quotes:
>
>Initially we have:
>> mettre /mEtr/ "to put"
>> mètre /mE:tr/ "meter"
>> maître /mE::tr/ "master"
>
>Then finally after Miguel evidently can't find the post
>in question

Of course I can. So can you. Go to Google. Click on
"Groups" above the search bar. Click on "advanced search in
all groups". Type in "mettre maître mètre" (all words), and
in "newsgroups", type "sci.lang". Click on OK. Click on
the first post in the search results. Click on "View entire
thread".

>I never thought about this in depth before.
>All I know is that double-long vowels don't exist in French.

That's precisely the problem. Most French people think that
there is no length contrast in French. But they've never
thought about it in depth.

>I suspect that the above situation has more to offer than what
>Miguel is admitting to. I think that for those that make the
>circumflex distinction, "maître" is in actuality pronounced as
>[me:tR] if anything (just as être is [e:tR] in such idiolects)

That may be a feature of Canadian French, but here in Europe
ê is _always_ open (like ô is /O/, and â is back /A/ for
speakers making the distinction).

>-- So, we have a _higher_ vowel than in /mEtR/ "mettre/mètre".
>Can we call that a three-way contrast? I don't think so.

The issue of quality (/e/ ~ /E/, /o/ ~ /O/, /ö/ ~ /Ö/, /a/ ~
/A/) is an entirely separate one.


=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...