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The Structural Design of Language

By Thomas S. Stroik, Michael T. Putnam

In this book, Stroik and Putnam take on Turing's challenge. They argue that the narrow syntax – the lexicon, the Numeration, and the computational system – must reside, for reasons of conceptual necessity, within the performance systems.


Query Details


Query Subject:   English pronunciation
Author:   John Esposito
Submitter Email:  click here to access email

Linguistic LingField(s):  Phonetics
Phonology

Query:   Greetings,

Wondered if anyone had an idea why a substantial number of Americans
pronounce the word ''both'' with an l.

A first-semester lx. student surprised me by supplying a hypothesis: she
grew up in a community of Danish ancestors. In some environments, Danish d
and t become a liquid, acoustically similar to
(or perhaps a uvular R);
I believe this sound was pronounced as eth until recent generations,
following more or less predictably the weakening hierarchy.

However, a survey of other students with this pronunciation yielded only
about 50% having contact with Scandinavian (mostly Norwegian) neighbors;
furthermore, I'm not aware of Dano-Norwegian (bokmal) having this sound.
Perhaps there's a simpler explanation? Is it due to an acoustic similarity
between /o/ and
? An analogy to ''bowl''?

John Esposito
San Diego State Univ.
LL Issue: 15.3227
Date posted: 17-Nov-2004



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