Re[2]: ka and k^a [was: [tied] *kW- "?"]

At 11:11:16 on Friday, 23 September 2005, Patrick Ryan
wrote:

> From: "Rob" <magwich78@...>

>> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ryan"
>> <proto-language@...> wrote:

>>> No American dialect from coast to coast or in between
>>> pronounces <lot> as /la?/.

True, because the final consonant is still phonemically /t/.
But the pronunciation [la?] ~ [lA?] is a U.S. variant of a
fairly common pronunciation with unreleased [?t]. (And the
difference is almost unnoticeable in ordinary conversation.)

[...]

> Transforming /t/ into a glottal stop (/?/) in English is
> strictly a low register Briticism. Whether it happens or
> not in Canadian English in any register, I do not know,
> but I doubt it. I certainly have never heard it.

I suspect that you've never really listened. Final stops,
especially /t/, are often (pre-) glottalized in American and
Canadian English, and from there it's a short step to losing
the original articulation entirely and getting simply [?].

Brian