Here goes.

I've wondered whether the insertion of a vowel between a glottalized
consonant and a final nasal isn't part of another change, namely the use
of a full vowel in previously reduced final syllables.  Since reduced
syllables ending in sonorants become syllabic sonorants, the use of a
full vowel blocks the syllabic sonorant.  A reduced vowel, of course,
would not.  It's this latter phenomenon that I've observed in,
particularly, female speakers in their teens and now up into their
thirties.

Herb


Herb, Bill, and all,

What's happening phonetically in words like "button" and "Martin" in 
most American speech is, as you've noted, use of a glottal stop instead 
of the /t/. There is no vowel in the  glottal-stop + nasal syllable; 
the nasal is the nucleus of the syllable (as Herb notes, the stop, 
whether alveolar or glottal, is released nasally, with onset of voice, 
making the nasal the only other sound in the syllable). Nuclear or 
syllabic consonants are transcribed by putting a very small vertical 
stroke under the nasal consonant. /r/, /l/, /m/, /n/, the "ng" sound 
are frequently syllabic in word-final position after a stop. Some 
people even change the nasal to match the consonant -- as in the 
pronunication of "open" as "opm".

The speakers that started this discussion seem to be re-inserting a 
vowel between the glottal stop and the nasal. I could speculate on 
reasons, but I don't have time right now. Maybe they are restoring the 
syllable to the classic CVC structure.

One of my favorite word reductions is "something". In my dialect, this 
reduces to  /s/ plus nasalized "short u", followed by glottal stop 
released into a syllabic /m/.

I wonder if others have observed the loss of /y/ in words like 
"Saturday", such that the word becomes "sa-er-day". There's all kinds 
of interesting stuff going on. (There are?)

As usual, could you post this for me?

Dr. Johanna Rubba, Associate Professor, Linguistics
Linguistics Minor Advisor
English Department
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Tel.: 805.756.2184
Dept. Ofc. Tel.: 805.756.2596
Dept. Fax: 805.756.6374
URL: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba

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