Date: Sat, 22 Nov 1997 19:16:02 -0700 From: "Garland D. Bills" Subject: Re: pragmatic change in progress? On Sat, 22 Nov 1997, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > I'm a /hw/-/w/ distinguisher; that is, 'whale' and 'wail' are not > homophones for me. > BUT - interrogative why ('Why did you do that?') is always /hw/ in my > speech, and the discourse marker 'why' ('Why, it's on the the other side of > the room') is invariably /w/. > Any other standard speakers out there like me who have this distinction > (not /hw/ - /w/ in general; lots of us old codgers from some places have > that, but this specific sepaation of the two 'whys')? Why, yes, of course. All us standard English speakers do that. Garland D. Bills E-mail: gbills[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]unm.edu Department of Linguistics Tel.: (505) 277-7416 University of New Mexico FAX: (505) 277-6355 Albuquerque, NM 87131-1196 USA