Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2024 April 28

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April 28

Questions

1. Are there any English dialects with short front rounded vowels, like /ʏ/ or /œ/?
2. Are there any words in English where checked vowels occur before /r/?
3. Are there any words in English where short full vowels occur in end of word?
4. Is there any language where epenthetic vowels or clitics can be stressed?
5. Are there any words in English where short vowels occur in stressed open syllables?
6. In Spanish, word país is pronounced [pa.ˈis]. The hypothetical word pais would be pronounced as [pajs], with a diphthong. But how would [ˈpa.is] be spelled, with a hiatus and stress on first syllable?
7. Can in English the OVS word order be used on emphasis?

--40bus (talk) 20:46, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

As for no. 2, checked vowels occur before intervocalic "r" in all quasi-standard dialects of English that I'm aware of. In the trio of "marry, merry, and Mary", short "a" [æ] traditionally occured in the first word and short "e" [ɛ] in the second. AnonMoos (talk) 02:14, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

New Yorkers, at least, tend to pronounce "marry" and "Mary" with a short a. In the midwest at least, marry, merry and Mary are generally pronounced identically, i.e. to sound like "merry". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:49, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

See Mary–marry–merry merger. In British English, this merger does not exist, the three words are pronounced with different vowels. Alansplodge (talk) 21:30, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Regardless of merging or not, checked/short vowels occur before intervocalic "r" in all quasi-standard dialects of English that I'm aware of. AnonMoos (talk) 23:17, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Is there an article on the Belvoir / Beaver merger? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:19, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

What is that supposed to mean? AnonMoos (talk) 23:21, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Belvoir and Beaver are pronounced the same. DuncanHill (talk) 23:48, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Learning this has just given me the same level of whiplash I felt when I learned that Cholmondeley is pronounced "Chum-lee." GalacticShoe (talk) 00:07, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

That's nice -- it has absolutely nothing whatever to do with checked vowels before "r", and so is exactly as relevant here as "Saturn has rings"... AnonMoos (talk) 00:41, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

As for no. 3, I already pointed out "yeah" and "baaah" (bleating of a sheep) previously. If you mean stressed short or checked vowels ending full lexical words (non-interjections), the answer is "no". AnonMoos (talk) 02:14, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

There is pho. Nardog (talk) 23:56, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Only if it's pronounced in a foreign way. AnonMoos (talk) 00:41, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

As for no. 5, there are many many English words where a stressed short/checked vowel occurs before a single intervocalic consonant (river, rubber, better, sinner etc. etc, where the orthographic double consonant letters do not indicate distinctive phonological geminate consonant sounds), but whether such a syllable is considered "open" depends on your theory of syllabification. AnonMoos (talk) 02:22, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

As for no. 4, there are a few forms in Tiberian Hebrew where an originally epenthetic vowel ends up stressed. The noun חדר "room" is Heder in the absolute state. It's a Segolate, so the first vowel is stressed, while the second vowel is originally epenthetic, but sometimes in the construct state the stress shifts to the second syllable... AnonMoos (talk) 02:44, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

See the first two pronunciations at Wiktionary (though not strictly Biblical). AnonMoos (talk) 23:20, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

As for no. 7, it's easy to get OSV with topicalization (focus fronting): "Him I don't like". OVS would be difficult outside of tortured poetry... AnonMoos (talk) 02:56, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

If an example of tortured poetry is needed, "Jawbone And The Air-Rifle" by The Fall contains the line "No bottle has he anymore". --Wrongfilter (talk) 10:39, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

V2 word order mentions some vestiges in Modern English. The section on direct quotations is relevant, as the quote can be seen as the direct object of the verb in the dialogue tag. So, ‘“Don't let us go too far!” said Frodo,’ is in OVS order. PiusImpavidus (talk) 19:52, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

It's kind of stretching the meanings to call a full sentence an "object". If by object we mean something which is typically given an accusative ending in case-inflected languages (due to its relationship with a verb), then OVS is quite marginal in modern English. (Notice that in the V2 word order article you linked to, the things that can cause V2 are listed as "topic adverbs and adverbial phrases" and quotatives -- not objects...) AnonMoos (talk) 22:15, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

4: Bulgarian has both. After the negative particle, pronominal and reflexive clitics are normally stressed: не те видях /nɛ ˈtɛ viˈdjax/ 'I didn't see you' (cf. днес те видях /ˈdnɛs tɛ viˈdjax/ 'today I saw you'), не се знае /nɛ ˈsɛ ˈzna.ɛ/ 'it is not known' (cf. това се знае /toˈva sɛ ˈzna.ɛ/ 'this is (well-)known'). Also the epenthetic vowel is stressed in добър /doˈbɤr/ 'good' (cf. the plural form добри /doˈbri/). Besides, in Arabic imperative verb forms, initial clusters are prevented by epenthesis of preceding vowels (themselves preceded by /ʔ-/ because a vowel cannot begin a syllable either), and compliant to the stress patterns of the language, such vowels can be stressed: اكتب /ˈʔuk.tub/ 'write!', اذهب /ˈʔið.hab/ 'go!'. --Theurgist (talk) 21:37, 30 April 2024 (UTC)