Date: Sat, 18 Dec 1993 01:41:20 CST From: "Donald M. Lance" Subject: Re: Rudy's comment on En/In Couldn't sleep, so I checked my e-mail. In Texas in general, Chicanos who merge E/I before nasals also use South Midland diphthongization, along with syllable-timing. Like Johnny Rodriguez, the country & western singer. As John Schumann pointed out twenty years ago, cultural adaptation goes along with (perhaps precedes) adoption of the subtleties of English phonotactics. The really good switch-jockeys have South Midnd phonology in English much of the time. A heavy cultural comment. Bilingual code-switching has been popular on Valley radio stations for at least five years. Since the 1950s a lot of the Mexican American music has come out of McAllen, Texas -- lots of platinum and gold records that gringos down there are totally unaware of. DMLance