center and sinner

<<Obviously /nt/-->[n] is more prevalent in my dialect! I was very surprised at some of the words where you had /nt/ --> [nt].>>

Yeah, for you /nt/-->[n] seems to be an (almost) regular allophonic rule, whereas for me it's more of an evolving shift. ;-)

<<Hehe, "winter" with [nt] sounds stilted coming out of my mouth.>>

It's funny how we perceive things. Saying ["twEnti] for "twenty", for instance, would sound stilted to me, but ["wInt@`] seems perfectly natural.

<<I remember calling my aunts "auntie" (as in "Auntie Sue"--I never just said "Auntie" by itself) as ["{ni] as a little kid.>>

Yeah, I likewise called my aunts "Auntie <name>", and it was always ["Anti]. Saying ["Ani] would sound *really* weird to me (weirder than ["{nti] or ["{ni]). ;-)

<<They're different for me:

center - ["sEnt@`] or in rapid speech ["sEn@`]
sinner - ["sIn@`]

Kirk, for you, is the /nt/-->[n] change as uniform as, say, the /t/-->[4] change in the same phonological contexts? Because I've found that I'm quite variable, with it being allowable in some situations but not in others. To give a little summary, for me:

Usually/always /nt/-->[nt]:
- twenty
- plenty (when used in a quantitative sense, like "plenty of", or "there's plenty", but *not* when used as an abstract noun, as in "land of plenty")
- In certain verbal forms, when followed by a vowel: wanted, want, went, "-sn't" words, and "-n't" words
- "Amount", when followed by a vowel (as in, "amount of")
- Word-finally in an unstressed syllable, when followed by a vowel: important, significant (as in, "the most important/significant of the...")
- Certain (longish) lexical items: representative, identity, gentleman

Sometimes /nt/-->[nt]:
- "center", in rapid speech
- "county", as in "xxx County Jail"
- "sent", when followed by a vowel
- "aunt", when followed by a vowel (I would always use [nt] in the sentence "My aunt ate it", but I might reduce /nt/-->[n] in a sentence like "My aunt is coming over")

Never /nt/-->[nt]:
- Most disyllabic lexical items: winter, cantor, banter, saunter, auntie
- Generally I never have /ntl=/-->[nl=]; I would always use [nt] in: gentle, dental, fundamental, etc.
- Past tense/participial forms like "talented", "scented", "granted" generally don't have /nt/-->[n]>>

I have /nt/ in all those words except "twenty". "twenty" is an exception which I have /4~/ in /twE4~I/, and it doesn't rhyme with "plenty" /plEntI/. "twenty" is the only word where [4~] appears in my speech.

<<It's funny how we perceive things. Saying ["twEnti] for "twenty", for instance, would sound stilted to me, but ["wInt@`] seems perfectly natural. >>

Hehe, yeah. Funny how that works.

<<Yeah, I likewise called my aunts "Auntie <name>", and it was always ["Anti]. Saying ["Ani] would sound *really* weird to me (weirder than ["{nti] or ["{ni]). ;-)>>

Yeah, ["Ani] does sound really weird to me (and not just because it has an unexpected vowel) for some reason.

<<I have /nt/ in all those words except "twenty". "twenty" is an exception which I have /4~/ in /twE4~I/, and it doesn't rhyme with "plenty" /plEntI/. "twenty" is the only word where [4~] appears in my speech.>>

Actually, I think [4~] is rather general to numbers in my speech, because ''ninety'' for me is [naI4~I].

I think [4~] might actually be phonemic for me, because I have in a few other cases as well, and it contrasts with [nt].

Do you have the same pronunciation for "wholly" and "holy"?
For me,

wholly [ho@li]
holy [houli]

Many dictionaries say they're pronounced the same, but for me they're quite distinct.

Wow! Lot's of different variations! Here's how I pronounce things:


"center" ["sEn@`]
"sinner" ["sIn@`]

/nt/-->[n]
twenty
plenty (including 'the land of plenty')
amount
important, significant before a vowel --> importan' significan' (with a glottal stop)
representative
identity
gentleman

always: centre, county
sometimes: sent (I sen a letter. vs. It was sen'.)

'My aunt ate it' = 'My an' ate it.' (w/a stop)
'My aunt is comming over' = 'My an' is comming over' (w/a stop)

Never /nt/-->[n]
cantor, banter, saunter
but always 'auntie' (pronounced 'Annie'), and occasionally winter (pronounced 'Winner')

gentle is never 'genle' (except 'gentlemen')
dental is usually dennole
sometimes fundamental is fundamennal

never 'talented', or 'scented', but sometimes 'granted' --> 'grannid'

----

ul vs ole words:

I don't pronounce hull and hole the same way. I pronounce hull as 'huh-l' and hole as 'hole'. Other words with 'ul' like 'culture' I pronounce as 'cahlture' instead of 'culture' or 'colture'. Involve is 'invahlve' for me, but colour is 'cuh-ller'.


-----
colour and duller

They rhyme. colour=cuh-ller

-----

golf vs gulf
They're both merged to 'gahlf'. Vault and cult also rhyme. (vahlt and cahlt)

----
Stilted
Winter with the 't' doesn't sound stilted to me, but twenty would (unless it's a speech).
----
Auntie
I call most of my aunts "auntie" if their name begins with an 'S' or a vowel. I always pronounce it as 'Annie' so Auntie Susan --> Annie Susan.

It IS weird to have an unshared merger, Kirk! But from what you've said about some of your Valley-Girl Lite vowels, I suspect there might be a few other variations between us. Probably pretty slight, though. Neither of us would be mistaken for East Coasters, I'm sure -- I find that their O's and OR's stand out pretty glaringly to me these days.

I will pronounce intervocalic T's if it's an uncommon word, a word I'm stressing, or if I think dropping it will confuse the listener.

Holy and wholly are identical to me.

Rom, if I remember correctly, you're from BC, are you not? It seems to me that many Canadians I've heard preserve their T's a bit better than Americans do. But is this more true in the eastern part than in the west?

<<I find that their O's and OR's stand out pretty glaringly to me these days.>>

What does this mean? Is this like pronouncing "for" instead of "fer"? :)

No, not fer/for. I'm referring more to the "cawfee"-type vowel you hear in the Northeast. It just has a slightly different quality than mine, as if their O's are shifted slightly more towards U and mine are shifted slightly more towards A. This wouldn't probably occur in your speech, though, as a Floridian (if I remember correctly)?

Very interesting, Rom. Your /nt/ --> [n] rules seem to be more in line with mine than with Lazar's (with some exceptions, of course).

<<It IS weird to have an unshared merger, Kirk!>>

Yes, I guess I just take it for granted you and I (almost) always have the same mergers. Guess we're not all the same after all!

<<But from what you've said about some of your Valley-Girl Lite vowels, I suspect there might be a few other variations between us.>>

Hehe--maybe linguists should just start referring to the California Vowel Shift as the "Valley-Girl Lite shift" ;) Of course then again it's not always so "lite" either...

<<Probably pretty slight, though. Neither of us would be mistaken for East Coasters, I'm sure -- I find that their O's and OR's stand out pretty glaringly to me these days.>>

Yeah I don't think I could really get away with posing as an East Coaster either ;)

I have a number of patterns, many rather different from those aforementioned, in which intervocalic or postvocalic /nt/ is realized. Note that in those which involve elision, the preceding vowel is always nasalized. Secondly, note that in formal or emphatic speech any of these cases may be still realized as [nt], even though such may not be not the default pronunciation, even in semi-formal speech. Here are some examples of such, using words that have already been mentioned in this discussion:

/nt/ -> [nt]

"talented"

/nt/ -> [4~]

"winter"
"county"
"auntie"
"gentle"
"dental"
"granted"
"scented"
"canter"
"banter"
"sauntor"

/nt/ -> [4~] -> creation of nasal diphthong

"twenty"
"plenty"

/nt/ -> [4~] -> elision

"identity"
"representative"

/nt/ -> [4~] -> elision -> elision with hardening of following syllabic or rhotic vowel

"center"
"gentleman"

/nt/ -> markedly nasal vowel + [?]

"sent"
"aunt"
"amount"
"significant"
"continent" (both /nt/s)

/nt/ -> [n=?]

"important"

As we can see here, while /nt/ -> [n] proper simply does not occur as such in my dialect, /nt/ -> [4~] occurs in its place in a very widespread fashion, far moreso than in, say, Lazar's dialect. However, in non-intervocalic positions /nt/ instead results in a markedly nasalized preceding vowel followed by a glottal stop, or if the vowel in question is sufficiently reduced, in [n=?]; this is not very atypical for a North American English dialect.

Another process which is less typical for an NAE dialect which is going on is a number of intersonorant elision processes, which in more informal speech are most likely acting on the likely intermediate form 4~ , with the result of the outright elision of the cluster /nt/ in intervocalic positions and the significant nasalization of the preceding vowel. The results of such include either combining the preceding and following vowels in a single nasalized diphthong, as in "twenty", or a realization including two vowels adjacent to each other. If the preceding vowel is tense, it is likely that [j] or [w], depending on whether it is a front or a back vowel, will be inserted at the point between the two vowels. However, in very informal speech and in particular for very frequent words what will often happen is that, if the following vowel is actually a syllabic consonant or /@`/, such will be "hardened" into a full consonant, as in /l=/ -> [5] or /@`/ -> [r\].

>>Rom, if I remember correctly, you're from BC, are you not? It seems to me that many Canadians I've heard preserve their T's a bit better than Americans do. But is this more true in the eastern part than in the west?<<
It's mostly people from AB, SK, and MB, that tend to overpronounce their T's. In BC, I think our T usage is about the same as in WA, OR, and Calif. I just talked to someone from California, and I didn't notice anything different about her T usage.

>>
<<Probably pretty slight, though. Neither of us would be mistaken for East Coasters, I'm sure -- I find that their O's and OR's stand out pretty glaringly to me these days.>>
Yeah I don't think I could really get away with posing as an East Coaster either ;)
<<

But I bet I could, since some of you thought that I sounded like John Kerry. :) I've also been to Massachusset's once, and nobody told me I had an accent (although I thought they had accents.)