Pronunciation of "continent" in North America.

SpaceFlight   Mon Apr 02, 2007 8:38 pm GMT
While intervocalic /nt/ is often reduced to /n/ before unstressed vowels for me e.g. "center" /sIn@`/, "horizontal" /hor\@zAn@/ this never happens in "continent" for me, which instead the /t/ becomes a glottal stop, thus the word for me is [kAn?@nInt], never *[kAn@nInt]. Does anyone have any idea why this is? Is it perhaps due to disassimilation?
Josh Lalonde   Mon Apr 02, 2007 10:06 pm GMT
I have a similar pronunciation, but I tend to pronounce /nt/ as [nt]. The reduced form in my accent is [4~], but I don't use it very often. I don't think I ever use the reduced form for 'continent', but if I were to use it, I would probably have something like yours: [kA~?InE~?], which sounds much more natural for me than [kAnInE~?].
Travis   Mon Apr 02, 2007 11:18 pm GMT
I similarly use the pronunciation ["k_ha~?n=:E~?] for "continent", never pronouncing it as ["k_ha~4~n=:E~?], even though [4~] is how I usually reduce /nt/.
Travis   Mon Apr 02, 2007 11:50 pm GMT
I should note that I probably actually have [I~?] more commonly at the end of "continent" than [E~?], even though I do use both for such.
Lazar   Tue Apr 03, 2007 1:06 am GMT
<<Does anyone have any idea why this is?>>

You said that the first /t/ becomes a glottal stop, so I think it may be that you're really using a syllabic [n=] there rather than an actual [@n], something like ["k_hAn?n=Int]. In this case, it would make sense that you preserve the /t/, because the [nt] cluster ceases to be intervocalic. So I would assume that you also have a similar [?] realization of /t/ in words like "Clinton", "mountain"?

I usually pronounce "continent" as ["k_hQn?n=%En?].
Travis   Tue Apr 03, 2007 1:45 am GMT
I myself pronounce "Clinton" as ["k_hL\I~:?n=:] and "mountain" as ["m6:U~?n=:], as one would expect here.
Travis   Tue Apr 03, 2007 1:47 am GMT
Ack, that should be ["k_hL\I~?n=:] and ["m6U~?n=:]. As it seems that "long" vowels are actually the default sort of vowel IMD, and "short" vowels are actually variant from such, I tend to sometimes actually mark things as long when they really should be short...
Josh Lalonde   Tue Apr 03, 2007 3:07 am GMT
I tend to pronounce a [t] in all these words, even in fairly informal speech. This is one of those things that I was told was 'wrong' when I was growing up, and I guess it stuck with me. I do use the reduced form occasionally, especially in fast, casual speech. I would use it for 'mountain' much more readily than for 'Clinton'.

Clinton [klIntn=]
mountain [maU~tIn]

or

[klI~?n=]
[maU~?n=]

I'm not sure why, pronouncing 'mountain' with a glottal stop, seems to change [In] to [n=]. Also, /In/ is realized as [I~] before [?], but [In] before [t], while [aU] is nasalized in both cases. I never noticed this before, and I'll have to figure out the rules behind it.