Timeline for Why is "i" before a -tion suffix pronounced like a short vowel even though it's an open syllable?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
16 events
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| Dec 14, 2022 at 21:29 | comment | added | Araucaria - Him | @herisson Phew. Glad you cleared that up. But no, that's not how LPD works, or ever could work. It would make things impossible to navigate. And it would cause all kinds of other weird problems far too profuse to outline here. Just slowly imagining the kinds of problems that would emerge. Mindboggling! | |
| Dec 14, 2022 at 18:02 | comment | added | herisson | @Araucaria-Nothereanymore: I think you interpreted my comment in a different way from what I intended. I wasn't trying to disparage LPD at all, just saying that I expect its inclusion criteria for word endings to be based first of all on what it is useful to know how to pronounce, rather than focusing on what is or isn't a "suffix" (whether or not "-ition" is segmented as a suffix for the purposes of morphology, it has a well-defined pronunciation). I was commenting on LPH's response to Lambie's nitpicking comment | |
| Dec 14, 2022 at 17:55 | comment | added | Araucaria - Him | @herisson I would think twice before offering personal judgements in passing on one of the most highly regarded phonetic dictionaries whose judgements are often based on well-developed and expounded phonological as well as phonetic analysis and arguments by one of the world's leading phoneticians. | |
| Dec 13, 2022 at 20:51 | comment | added | LPH | @herisson The pronunciation dictionary does not make precise the nature of the ending; it is only possible to determine that it is a suffix when a sentence containing "this suffix" is added (or some such reference); for "-ition" there is no such inkling; however, in The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary "-ition" is classified as a suffix. When I used to study the pronunciation of English, I had the same impression as you have: it doesn't matter much to know whether one is dealing with just a plain ending or a suffix; nevertheless, I felt also that it was no negligible piece of information. | |
| Dec 13, 2022 at 20:17 | comment | added | herisson | Since LPD is a pronouncing dictionary, I think some common endings might be included regardless of what kind of entities they would strictly be categorized as being in terms of morphology. I don't think the strict definition of "suffix" matters much for the purpose of this question, though | |
| Dec 13, 2022 at 20:14 | comment | added | LPH | There is an error in this comment: not "every time" but "quite a few times". | |
| Dec 13, 2022 at 20:09 | comment | added | LPH | @Lambie There has to be a problem somewhere, as I find it listed as a suffix in both the SOED and the LPD (pronunciation). | |
| Dec 13, 2022 at 20:07 | comment | added | Lambie | There is no ition suffix in English; There is: -tion AND -sion | |
| Dec 13, 2022 at 20:02 | comment | added | herisson | @LPH: From tchrist's list, contrite, erudite, extradite, ignite, unite vs. contrition, erudition, extradition, ignition, unition serve as examples of long-short alternation. | |
| Dec 13, 2022 at 18:30 | comment | added | Araucaria - Him | @tchrist Que? It's compete, not competete / competite ...! :) | |
| Dec 13, 2022 at 12:42 | comment | added | LPH | @FeRD It is even worse than that: stress is being displaced every time, and the actual phenomenon is a reduction of an unstressed middle vowel, not the changing of a stressed long vowel into a stressed short vowel. | |
| Dec 13, 2022 at 4:34 | comment | added | FeRD | It is interesting that not a single example in the trisyllabic laxing Wikipedia article involves an -ition word. They note divide→division, derive→derivative, and pronounce→pronunciation, but that's as close as they get to -ition. (And in fact, the use of depose→deposit as an example rather than depose→deposition feels especially significant.) | |
| Dec 12, 2022 at 21:25 | history | edited | LPH | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Dec 12, 2022 at 20:40 | comment | added | LPH | @tchrist This is not the explanation of the pronunciation of the suffix; for instance in "repeat/repetition" the laxing concerns "ea/e", not "ea/i"; moreover, this is rather a topic in specialist knowledge about phonology and it is excessive to impose that much erudition on mere users of the language, in my opinion. (Wikipedia) | |
| Dec 12, 2022 at 19:03 | comment | added | tchrist♦ | You've missed trisyllabic laxing: compete/competition, compose/composition, define/definition, contrite/contrition, depose/deposition, erudite/erudition, extradite/extradition, ignite/ignition, oppose/opposition, propose/proposition, repeat/repetition, require/requisition, unite/unition. | |
| Dec 12, 2022 at 18:34 | history | answered | LPH | CC BY-SA 4.0 |