Re: the null phoneme

--- In phoNet@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski
<piotr.gasiorowski@i...> wrote:

> 15-08-03 12:33, Jean-Paul G. POTET wrote:
>
> > No doubt emphasis plays its part, but, to me, English has the
> > initial glottal stop whenever there is no liaison.
> > The liaison rule operates for utterances like <an ear>,
> > constituted of a single iambic foot : [°@ "nI@], but it does not
> > in the case of <one ear>, <two ears>,
> > In utterances like <one ear>, <two ears>, that are constituted
> > of two trochaic feet each, isn't the glottal stop compulsory :
> > ["°wAn '°?I@], ["°thu '°?I@z]?
>
> I don't think so, but then I was explicitly instructed by my RP
> pronunciation teachers to avoid the glottal stop in such cases.
> Let's hear the opinion of our native English-speakers (the
> avoidance of [?] may well be a dialectal phenomenon). I insert in
> when speaking Polish, but because of my training I say <two ears>
> without a glottal stop. I am aware of a momentary diminution of
> energy between the vowels, but it's probably Ladefoged &
> Maddieson's "creaky voiced glottal approximant", for which they
> use the symbol [*].
>
> Piotr

A glottal stop in these examples would be rare for me - only in
circumstances where the addressee had shown difficulty in hearing.
The "diminution of energy" might occur for {two ears} as an
intermediate form, never for {one ear}. On the other hand, a glottal
stop (or a diminution) may occur in {three ears}.

Question: How are terms such as iambic and trochaic being applied?
If iambic is shorter+longer, then {one ear} is also iambic (of
course, this interpretation is tricky for stress-timed dialects).
If not (i.e. short = unstressed), wouldn't {two ears} be _1 spondaic_
foot rather than _2 trochaic_ feet?

IKP SoFla USA