Re: Re[4]: ka and k^a [was: [tied] *kW- "?"]

From: Patrick Ryan
Message: 40505
Date: 2005-09-24

----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...>
To: "Patrick Ryan" <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, September 23, 2005 8:32 PM
Subject: Re[4]: ka and k^a [was: [tied] *kW- "?"]


> At 8:49:39 PM on Friday, September 23, 2005, Patrick Ryan
> wrote:
>
> > From: "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...>
>

> > Unnamed "sources". More empty generalizations.
>
> Why should I bother to dig them out?

***
Patrick:

You have explained umpteen times that the sources do not exist because the
phenomenon is so "obvious" to anyone who does not have a tin ear.

Now you say you could, if you wanted, bother to dig them out?

I have a proposition for you; do not dig them out, just point me to them.

If they exist.

***

Your mind's made up.


***
Patrick:

If you have evidence, besides what you think you hear at beer-bashes, I will
be glad to change my mind.

***

> Besides, the parenthetical comment was to some degree
> concessive: although your interpretation of the Huffman
> article is wrong, and the phenomenon isn't limited to the
> context used in the example, it is nevertheless probably
> true that the specific context for which data were given is
> the one in which the effect shows up most strongly. You
> should have been happy to get even that much.
>
> >>> And even then, in only _15%_ of the instances does [t]
> >>> become [?] -
>
> >> You mean that /t/ is realized as [?]; there was no [t] in
> >> the first place in these utterances.
>
> > Read it again. What does "final-/t/" mean? OOPS! How
> > obvious! It does not mean /t/.
>
> Why yes, it *does* mean /t/, when the choice is between that
> and the [t] that you wrote; it just doesn't refer to all
> instances of /t/.


***
Patrick:

How naïf! [t] does not occur in GA unless it reflects <t> and /t/.

***



> >>> in the _Long Island_ area.
>
> >> 15% is rather a lot when set against the claim that it
> >> happens in no U.S. variety. And at least one of the
> >> references that I cited a few hours ago adds some
> >> independent data. The Dautricourt abstract notes that:
>
> >> In a dataset consisting of over 400 tokens, comprising all
> >> /t,d#y/ word pairs in hour-long interviews with 16
> >> speakers, four variants predominated in the following
> >> decreasing order of frequency: glottal stop, palatal
> >> affricates, alveolar stops, and (alveolar stop) deletion.
>
> > This does not bear on the question.
>
> On the contrary, it is (in part) precisely to the point, as
> it refers to a subset of the class of syllable-final /t/
> (and /d/, which indeed is not directly to the point).


***
Patrick:

Then tell me, O better reader, what percentage of the people in the study
_use_ [?] for final /t/; and how often.

***


> Brian