Re: [tied] Re: Stød and rising tone

There are meaningful tone distinctions in some US dialects, especially those that drop final -r and other consonants. Tone is not just for emphasis and general amusement.

The classics that come to mind are granted vs. granite in some upper Midwestern accents

and door vs. doe in Mississippi Delta accent

The Appalachian dialects are much more varied than most people realize and are often confused with Lowland Southern dialects.

tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

> Aren't tones in West Germanic dialects mostly related
> to semantics and syntax (and emotional expression) rather
> than being peculiarities of individual words? Besides,
> the tones of the North Germanic dialects are much more
> pleasing to the ear, in my opinion.

Personally, I like the Liverpool dialect. Very musical.

Now of course I have no intuition in the area, but
is there any other way of pronouncing eg. American
Southern 'Hot damn!' than with rising - falling
(or 'Damn!' with falling tone)?

Torsten

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