41
votes
Is the T in ‘mistook’ pronounced the same as the T in ‘mistake’ is?
Phonemically, both "took" and "mistook" use /t/, not /d/ or /ɾ/ (the d-like "intervocalic tap" you hear in "butter" or "ladder" in certain dialects).
...
- 1,442
35
votes
Psychology of diphthongs
TL;DR
All tense monophthongs in English become non-phonemic, phonetic-only diphthongs with weak off-glides in most speakers and contexts. Minor phonologic effects like this are part of getting an ...
- 137k
34
votes
Why is the zh (ʒ) sound so infrequent in English?
I would say it is a combination of two factors that show up separately in other sounds with token frequency on the low end.
/ʒ/ never developed in vocabulary inherited from Proto-Germanic
English is ...
- 84.5k
21
votes
Is the T in ‘mistook’ pronounced the same as the T in ‘mistake’ is?
"mis + took", both are pronounced the same.
Mistake:
/mɪˈsteɪk/
Mistook:
/mɪˈstʊk/
Both have the "st" sound, there is no "d" when pronouncing either of these words.
- 1,161
16
votes
Accepted
Why is there a flap allophone of /t/ but not of /k/ or /p/?
I'm going to propose that this phenomenon has nothing to do with voiceless stops. I think it's worth pointing out that [ɾ] is an allophone of the voiced /d/ in at least as many accents as [ɾ] is an ...
- 2,532
13
votes
Accepted
Can American ‘bought’ sometimes sound like ‘bop’?
Short answer (tl;dr):
Yes, the last consonant in the word bought may often be realised as a [p] before the word me.
The full story
In General American, a syllable final /t/ followed by a consonant ...
- 48.7k
10
votes
In Northern England, what vowel phoneme is used in “can’t”?
Short answer: PALM
According to Wells's Accents of English (1982)—the very book which gave us the lexical sets like START, TRAP, PALM, and BATH—while the TRAP–BATH split is largely absent in the north ...
- 1,898
8
votes
Psychology of diphthongs
From the point of view of most native English speakers, diphthongs such as /eɪ/, /aɪ/ etc are not noticeably different from other, monophthongal vowels.
SIL defines a diphthong as "A diphthong is a ...
- 3,381
6
votes
Voicing of sibilants before liquids, after voiced vowels?
I think that the common pronunciation of muslim with /z/ does indicate that there is likely some analogy going on with words like muslin or gosling. The l doesn't "cause" /z/ in the sense of ...
- 84.5k
6
votes
What are common words in which written ‹i› is pronounced as the phoneme /ai/?
I’m afraid you aren’t going to be able to do what you’re hoping to do with
this—for several concrete reasons. So this answer should be read as a frame
challenge. You’ve asked a question that cannot be ...
- 137k
5
votes
Accepted
When is the "Short A" sound actually spelled with an AE?
It's not common for the digraph ⟨ae⟩ to represent /æ/. ⟨ae⟩ is usually pronounced:
/iː/ (encyclopaedia, aether, aeon)
/ɛ/ (aesthetics, aerial in AmE)
/eə/ or /ɛː/ (aeroplane, aerial in BrE).
The ...
- 16.7k
5
votes
How did the "double consonant to shorten vowel" thing come about? ("furry" vs. "fury")
"Furry" and "fury" is actually a pretty bad example of this rule because of what "r" does to vowels, and "u" in particular.
In any case, historically, a double ...
- 1,442
5
votes
Accepted
Is /ɑ/ a back or central vowel in GA English?
The phonetic position of vowels in English really depends heavily on the accent. Note that the chart is from a 1982 source, so even ignoring that different speakers use different qualities for vowels, ...
- 84.5k
5
votes
Accepted
American English retroflex 'd' in the word 'guardian'?
I believe the sound you're hearing there is not a retroflex plosive but a retroflex tap or flap, transcribed as [ɽ]. The /d/ in guardian satisfies the American English flapping rules (see Wiki), since ...
- 19.6k
5
votes
Is the T in ‘mistook’ pronounced the same as the T in ‘mistake’ is?
It is indeed, quite often, "misdook." Basically.
I took the liberty of downloading (American English) pronunciations of "mistook" from six online dictionaries, then removing ...
- 19.6k
4
votes
Accepted
Are [ɪ] and [i] are allophones of the same phoneme in English?
The short answer is no. In English, the phones [ɪ] and [i] are not just allophones of a single phoneme.
There are many minimal pairs like "bit-beat", "shit-sheet", "bitch-beach" that establish that [...
- 84.5k
4
votes
Accepted
Is there such a thing as "pangram for phonemes"?
The following three mnemonics (the first devised by my father in the 1940s and the second and third devised by me in the 1970s) almost do the trick requested.
"We will aim them at some high, far bow-...
- 1,340
3
votes
Accepted
How do you syllabify "anxious" or "luxury" or "taxi"?
In the two cases you've mentioned where the syllable after the consonant cluster is stressed, it is fairly unanimously agreed that the syllabification goes between the two consonants. Thus:
/ɪɡˈzækt/
...
- 84.5k
3
votes
Accepted
Is the underlying form of "n" /n/ or /ŋ/ in words ending in -nk?
There can be different vowel allophones before /n/ and /ŋ/
As long as we assume that /n/ and /ŋ/ are both phonemes of Modern English, there doesn't seem to be any good reason to suppose that word-...
- 84.5k
3
votes
Accepted
Why are there so many restrictions on /ŋ/ in English?
Most of the unusual behavior of [ŋ] can be explained in its historical origin from simplification of the consonant cluster [ŋg] (in words where [ŋ] occurs in modern English outside of the clusters [ŋg]...
- 84.5k
3
votes
Is there normally a lexicalized loss of phonemic /d/ in the coda of "depends"?
It's not the mispronunciation /dɪˈpendz/ that the author is highlighting, it's the mispronunciation /deˈpenz/ (or /deˈpendz/).
In English, it doesn't really matter whether you pronounce it /nz/ or /...
- 90.3k
3
votes
Are R-colored diphthongs phonemes or not?
How can you tell?
I think the right thing to do is ask a bunch of Americans who haven't thought much about phonetics whether the vowel in beard is the same as the vowel in bead or as the vowel in ...
- 90.3k
3
votes
Are R-colored diphthongs phonemes or not?
In my experience, rhotic vowels generally aren't regarded as separate vowel phonemes. But I am not a linguist so you shouldn't take my word for it. Hopefully someone else will post a better answer ...
- 84.5k
3
votes
Difference between word-final iː, i and ɪ
The patterns of contrast and neutralization
In an open word-final syllable with primary stress, the distinction between FLEECE /iː/ and /ɪ/ is definitely neutralized in both the "General American" ...
- 84.5k
3
votes
Are there other examples of names similar to "McKeen", with multiple capitals within a word and non-initial capital letter placement within graphemes?
After detailed research, I realized two things:
In the word "McKeen", it is the "Mc" grapheme that corresponds to the /mə/ phoneme. This mapping also holds true in other Irish &...
- 292
3
votes
English minimal pair for /uː/ and /ʊ/ in which /uː/ is rendered as [u]?
Thank you for the edit! I'm going to rephrase to check that I've understood the question correctly.
The question is about whether there are any minimal pairs between the phoneme /u(ː)/ (as in "...
- 84.5k
3
votes
Accepted
American 'n' sound is sometimes retroflex?
Yes, this is a recognized phenomenon. There was a related question I answered a while back about how, in American English, a flapped /d/ after /r/ can become a retroflex flap [ɽ]. Since /n/ can also ...
- 19.6k
3
votes
Accepted
American English 'mouse': /maʊs/ or /mæʊs/?
The diphthong formed in English by ow (cow, fowl) or ou (doubt, mouse) is pronounced with either [aʊ̯] or [æʊ̯] in General American English (see, e.g., Wikipedia). [aʊ̯] is usually taught as the ...
- 41.7k
2
votes
Looking for a minimal triple with /ɑ, ɒ, ɔ/
It's awkward that this is required to work in a rhotic accent, because that unfortunately removes most /a:/ syllables and a good deal of /ɔ:/ syllables, too. Perhaps you'd allow:
lakhs, locks, lawks!
...
- 5,376
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