Glossonomia Podcast
Glossonomia Podcast
Monday, November 1, 2010
Phil and Eric are in fine form in this third (but, not final, alas...) part of their trilogy on the three lexical sets known as trap, bath & palm.
We set out to do three things: correct an error regarding bath "prime," discuss features of trap, most notably the feature called "Asc Tensing" (sounds like something Richard Simmons would have you do for a firmer butt), and to dig deeper into the palm set. Alas, we don't get to the third objective, though we did try.
Show Notes:
Phil explains how he mixed up bath (c) with bath "prime", the group of words that are least likely to be said with /æ/ in the UK today.
bath (c) calf, half, calve, halve, rather, Slav,
shan't, can't,
Iraq, corral, morale, Iran, Sudan, banana.
bath "prime:"
chaff, graph, alas, hasp, Basque, masque,
plastic, drastic, elastic, gymnastic, (Cornish) pasty, en-
thusiastic, bastard, paschal, pastoral, masculine, mas-
querade, exasperate, blasphemy, masturbate, Glasgow,
lather, stance, askance, circumstantial, intransigent, substantial, transit, transport, transfer, transform, transitory, transient, transept, and other words in trans-;
contralto, alto, plaque, Cleopatra.
æ tensing
Phil and Eric talk about Asc Tensing, whereby the vowel gets more close, and so it begins to move into the territory of dress. (Eric confuses things by talking about Asc Tensing and Breaking at the same time.) Here's the chart the guys refer to:
Northern Breaking
Northern Breaking is whereby the trap sound breaks into a centering diphthong. In the course of things, Eric reveals his ignorance (yet again) in imagining that it is an onglide (rather than an offglide), as Phil so wisely demonstrates with a slowed-down pronunciation.
æ raising before nasals
This map from the Atlas of North American English (Labov et al), shows the distribution of this feature. The red dots show places where trap before nasals is much more tense that other trap words.
Eric and Phil also briefly touched on in Hiberno (Irish English) and reference Raymond Hickey's IERC Irish English Resource Centre. They also discussed something that Jack Windsor Lewis mentioned on his site, Changes in British English pronunciation during the twentieth century,
here.
More next time!
Episode 17: trap, bath & palm Part III