Questions tagged [mergers]
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10
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Rising Pitch as the only minimal pair differentiator? The "cot" - "caw" [split? semi-merge? something else?]
Canonically, English is not a tonal language, and there are a number of posts on this site discussing why the use of rising tone in asking a question does not qualify (the reason being that it doesn't ...
- 333
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1
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Is there a documented merger or split responsible for whether or not people treat lair and layer as homophones, and if so, what is it called?
Discovered a weird bit of pronunciation distinction in friends today, between three words:
lair (as in home to monster)
layer (as in levels of a cake)
layer (as in "one who lays things down"...
- 628
3
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Do Americans with PIN-PEN merger confuse "imminent" and "eminent"? [closed]
The PIN-PEN merger is a merger of the vowels /ɪ/ (KIT vowel) and /ɛ/ (DRESS vowel) before nasals [m n ŋ]. The resultant vowel is more raised and is closer to [ɪ]. Pin pen, him hem, kin ken are ...
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Does anyone know if there is a ‘ball-bowl’ merger in Australia?
I live in Australia, and I recently had a moment of confusion when talking with someone who had merged the words ball and bowl. They pronounced it something like /bɔl/. They said fall, small, wall, ...
- 143
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Looking for a word that describes the merger of two words, is this an example of Portmanteau?
This is slightly awkward to explain, so I will be as clear as possible. I am aware of what a portmanteau is, as you will see below, but I am unsure if my examples classify as such.
I'm looking to ...
- 59
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2
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What American dialects merge pail and pal to /pæl/?
What American dialects merge "pail" (General American /peɪ̯l/) and "pal" (GA /pæl/) into one pronunciation /pæl/?
(And likewise "mail", "male", "Mal"...
- 245
2
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The short 'i' in the word "believe"?
What is this merger called? I know there's the nearer-mirror merger, where both words are pronounced with the exact same long i, but which merger is responsible for the pronunciation of the short i in ...
- 882
2
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1
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224
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Text for exhibiting different pronunciations
I'm looking for a text that can be used to showcase various differences in pronunciation across English accents. For example, it could include examples of the various splits/mergers (Mary/merry/mary, ...
- 123
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Difference between ɒ and ɔ: in terms of sound?
Are they same, like, allophones? To me, they sound like same?
- 181
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Why are many TV personalities beginning to pronounce "daughter" as "dotter"?
I have noticed the changing of proununciations of words with -au and -aw by TV presenters which is spilling over into everyday speech. For example “dotter” for daughter, “otto” for auto, “jah” for jaw,...
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