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

From: Brian M. Scott
Message: 40563
Date: 2005-09-24

At 10:40:37 PM on Friday, September 23, 2005, Patrick Ryan
wrote:

> I want evidence that it exists outside of tiny enclaves
> like Long Gisland,

The Buckeye corpus, source of the data used by Dautricourt
and Raymond, was produced from the speech of 40 central
Ohioans.

> and is found in registers outside of the lowest classes

John Wells:

What are the phonetic characteristics of Estuary English
(EE)? Many of the features that distinguish it from RP are
features it shares with Cockney: things that may mark it
as being distinctively south-eastern (as against RP, which
is non-localizable within England). But these features are
spreading geographically and socially, thus losing their
localizability and thus to some extent justifying the
claim that EE is 'tomorrow's RP'.

Unlike Cockney, EE is associated with standard grammar and
usage. But like Cockney it shows tendencies towards such
phonetic characteristics as the following:

He lists four, one of which is:

* glottalling, using a glottal stop [?] (a catch in the
throat) instead of a t-sound in certain positions, as in
take it off [%teIk I? "Qf], quite nice [%kwAI? "nAIs].

<http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/estuary/whatis.htm>

The clear implication is that t-glottaling is not restricted
to lower-class usage.

Scattered through the comprehensive survey of work on
Estuary English available at
<www.universalteacher.org.uk/lang/joanna-ryfa-estuary.pdf>
is a great deal of evidence that t-glottaling is by no means
confined to 'the lowest classes' and that it occurs with
significant frequency in RP speech.

Finally, there is the PhD thesis 'T-Glottaling: Between
Stigma and Prestige. A Sociolinguistic Study of Modern RP',
Anne H. Fabricius, 2000, which can be found at
<http://www.ruc.dk/isok/skriftserier/aarsberetninger/2000/ab00-profilbpr/>.
In it you'll find both data and statistical analysis
thereof. Among the conclusions:

1. T-glottaling in modern RP is stable in pre-consonantal
environments in both speech styles [scil. Interview
Style and Reading Passage Style -BMS] and is accepted
by these speakers in formal and informal speech.
2. It has entered modern RP as a vernacular change
(spreading out from London), but its vernacular status
is obscured by other factors.
3. It has to some extent lost its stigma, _but not yet
acquired prestige_, in word-final pre-pausal and
pre-vocalic environments.

Fabricius also cites Janet Holmes, 1995, 'Glottal stops in
New Zealand English: an analysis of variants of word-final
/t/', Linguistics 33, 433-463, to the effect that
t-glottaling is a prestige feature in NZ, and Inger M. Mees,
1987, 'Glottal stop as a prestigious feature in Cardiff
English', English World-Wide 8, 25-39, and Mees and Beverley
Collins, 1999, 'Cardiff: a real time study of
glottalisation', in Paul Foulkes and Gerard J. Docherty,
eds., 1999, _Urban Voices: Accent Studies in the British
Isles, London, Arnold, 185-202, to the effect that it's also
a prestige feature in Cardiff, where it is the middle-class
female speakers who show the most t-glottaling.

If you still aren't convinced that water's wet, you're on
your own; this is way off topic, and it's getting
increasingly difficult not to respond in kind to your
oafishness.

> and people faking Britishness.

Brian