Pronunciation of 'to' in today/tomorrow

Alan   Wed Dec 12, 2007 10:12 am GMT
I hear people say /tudeI/ but not what I see in dictionary which the first consonant is schwa, which one is correct?
Guest   Wed Dec 12, 2007 1:23 pm GMT
A schwa is not a consonant!
furrykef   Wed Dec 12, 2007 2:17 pm GMT
Hmm. m-w.com and dictionary.com only list it with a schwa. However, I doubt many would consider /tudeI/ an incorrect pronunciation... No idea how common it is, though. The schwa is more natural for me to say.

- Kef
Travis   Wed Dec 12, 2007 3:16 pm GMT
The matter is that underlying such really is /tu"de(I)/, but your dictionary is trying to have a more phonetic representation of the word by taking vowel reduction into account. However, though, in reality many dialects actually do not reduce /u/ in "today" consistently, particularly in careful speech where it is very likely to be realized as [u] in many if not most English dialects.
Guest   Wed Dec 12, 2007 3:33 pm GMT
if I am stressing the first syllable, or speaking in a manner as to be very clear and concise, I will pronounce the otherwise schwa'd "t'day" as "to - day".

This goes for most other words as well.
Lazar   Wed Dec 12, 2007 5:36 pm GMT
I pronounce them [t_h@"deI] and [t_h@"mQ:r\7U]. I would rarely if ever use [t_hu...], maybe just as a humorous affectation.
Guest   Wed Dec 12, 2007 10:30 pm GMT
In California, /tUdeI/ would be formal and/or emphatic.
In this state, reduced forms are preferred: for sure (FER SHERE /f@r S@r/
Marc   Wed Dec 12, 2007 11:34 pm GMT
This is how they are normally pronounced:
Today /t@de/
Tomorrow /t@mOro/
Travis   Wed Dec 12, 2007 11:38 pm GMT
>>Tomorrow /t@mOro/<<

Not in most North American English dialects outside of Canada and the very northern extreme of the US, which have the FATHER vowel rather than the COUGHT vowel in the second syllable of "tomorrow". At least here there is:

"today" [t_j_h}_^u:"de:] ~ [t_h@:"de:] ~ [4@:"de:]
"tomorrow" [t_j_h}~_^u~:"mA:Ro:] ~ [t_h@~:"mA:Ro:] ~ [4@~:"mA:Ro:]
Marc   Thu Dec 13, 2007 3:40 am GMT
>>Tomorrow /t@mOro/<<

Not in most North American English dialects outside of Canada and the very northern extreme of the US, which have the FATHER vowel rather than the COUGHT vowel in the second syllable of "tomorrow". At least here there is:

"today" [t_j_h}_^u:"de:] ~ [t_h@:"de:] ~ [4@:"de:]
"tomorrow" [t_j_h}~_^u~:"mA:Ro:] ~ [t_h@~:"mA:Ro:] ~ [4@~:"mA:Ro:] <<

Well I was referring to the standard American accent not the Southern pronunciation.
Lazar   Thu Dec 13, 2007 3:47 am GMT
Marc, Travis isn't anywhere near Southern. The pronunciation using /A:/ (or to put it more inclusively, historical /Q/) is overwhelmingly predominant in the US.
Travis   Thu Dec 13, 2007 4:45 am GMT
>>Well I was referring to the standard American accent not the Southern pronunciation.<<

Actually, that pronunciation is no where near Southern... Southern NAE has neither monophthongal historical /eI/ and /oU/ or uvular rhotics, for starters, which should be obvious...

>>Marc, Travis isn't anywhere near Southern. The pronunciation using /A:/ (or to put it more inclusively, historical /Q/) is overwhelmingly predominant in the US.<<

For the record, I'm from Wisconsin, which is nowhere near the South.

As for historical /Q/, properly all NAE dialects have reflexes of such in "tomorrow". The only thing is that in words where /Q/ was followed by /r/, aside from a few dialects with neither the father-bother merger nor the cot-caught merger, /Qr/ merged with either /A:r/ or /O:r/. In most NAE dialects in the US, /Qr/ in disyllabic words such as "sorry" got merged with /A:r/, while in Canada and some parts of the far north of the US it got merged wtih /O:r/. On the other hand, in trisyllabic words such as "horrible", /Qr/ got merged with /O:r/ in most NAE dialects except for many dialects along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the US, where it often was merged with /A:r/. This is not necessarily entirely consistent, though; for instance, at least here, "sorrow" is ["sA:Ro:] and "horrible" is ["hO:R1:bM:] but "sorry" is normally ["sO:Ri:] (even though one can also hear the compromise pronunciation ["sQ:Ri:] and the more General American-like ["sA:Ri:] for "sorry" here at times, as this is close to the isogloss with having unrounded vowels in "sorry").
Marc   Thu Dec 13, 2007 5:42 am GMT
>>
For the record, I'm from Wisconsin, which is nowhere near the South. <<

Well, it just goes to show that Wisconsin has quite an accent. I speak General American English and pronounce it as /t@mOro/. Tomahrow sounds rather off, sort of like "hahrible". I'm from Kirkwood, California, and everyone around here pronounces it /t@mOro/.
Guest   Thu Dec 13, 2007 5:48 am GMT
Everyone in Southern California says /t@mAro/. I guess Northern California is different.
Lazar   Thu Dec 13, 2007 6:21 am GMT
<<Well, it just goes to show that Wisconsin has quite an accent.>>
Well, Travis' dialect may have many features that seem exotic relative to General American, but pronouncing "tomorrow" with the FATHER phoneme isn't one of them. Trust me, even for speakers who pronounce "horrible" with the FORCE vowel (and this one is predominant), "sorry", "tomorrow", "sorrow", and "borrow" tend to constitute a special class that uses the FATHER vowel. Just look it up in any American dictionary - m-w.com gives [O] as the primary pronunciation for "horrible" but [A] as the primary pronunciation for "tomorrow".