Comments for speech talk http://englishspeechservices.com/blog thoughts on English, speech & language Fri, 18 May 2012 12:41:38 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 Comment on Non-durable, for sure by Geoff Lindsey http://englishspeechservices.com/blog/?p=3293#comment-770 Geoff Lindsey Fri, 18 May 2012 12:41:38 +0000 http://www.englishspeechservices.com/blog/?p=3293#comment-770 It's complex, which is why I didn't make generalizations about the north in the post. In the IDEA archive, <a href="http://web.ku.edu/~idea/europe/england/england43.mp3" target="blank" rel="nofollow">this man</a> from Salford says <em>cure</em> with THOUGHT but <a href="http://web.ku.edu/~idea/europe/england/england15.mp3" target="blank" rel="nofollow">this man</a> from Wigan pronounces <em>cure</em> as what sounds to me like a 2-syllable rhyme with <em>sewer</em>, which is what I think Peter Kay does. (<em>Cure</em> is the final word of the passage <em>Comma gets a cure</em> which they both read.) I suspect that the Peter Kay type accent lost its rhoticity only recently, and I don't think that rhotic pronunciations of CURE words would rapidly shift to THOUGHT. I could be wrong, but I hear Paxman's <em>poor</em> in that clip as distinct from a clearly pronounced GOOSE + <strong>ə</strong>. I dare say that Paxman <strong>might</strong> occasionally pronounce <em>brewer, truer, sewer, fewer</em> with the same vowel as his <em>poor</em>, but the idea is that in classical R.P. <em>sewer</em> etc. could <strong>potentially</strong> be pronounced as the 2-syllable sequence [uːə], whereas <em>poor, cure, moor, sure</em> etc. could not. This of course is not a special claim of mine: the potential contrast between e.g. <em>cure</em> and <em>queuer</em> (one who queues) was the very basis for claiming that R.P. had a phoneme "/ʊə/" in the first place. Similarly, the LACK of a potential contrast between e.g. <em>shire</em> and <em>shy-er</em> was the basis for claiming that R.P. did NOT have a phoneme "/aə/". If <em>cure</em> and <em>queuer</em> are the same in a given accent, then there's no more need for a special "/ʊə/" vowel than there is in fully THOUGHT-merged accents. It’s complex, which is why I didn’t make generalizations about the north in the post. In the IDEA archive, this man from Salford says cure with THOUGHT but this man from Wigan pronounces cure as what sounds to me like a 2-syllable rhyme with sewer, which is what I think Peter Kay does. (Cure is the final word of the passage Comma gets a cure which they both read.) I suspect that the Peter Kay type accent lost its rhoticity only recently, and I don’t think that rhotic pronunciations of CURE words would rapidly shift to THOUGHT.

I could be wrong, but I hear Paxman’s poor in that clip as distinct from a clearly pronounced GOOSE + ə. I dare say that Paxman might occasionally pronounce brewer, truer, sewer, fewer with the same vowel as his poor, but the idea is that in classical R.P. sewer etc. could potentially be pronounced as the 2-syllable sequence [uːə], whereas poor, cure, moor, sure etc. could not. This of course is not a special claim of mine: the potential contrast between e.g. cure and queuer (one who queues) was the very basis for claiming that R.P. had a phoneme “/ʊə/” in the first place. Similarly, the LACK of a potential contrast between e.g. shire and shy-er was the basis for claiming that R.P. did NOT have a phoneme “/aə/”.

If cure and queuer are the same in a given accent, then there’s no more need for a special “/ʊə/” vowel than there is in fully THOUGHT-merged accents.

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