Date:  Tue, 31 Oct 1995 13:46:22 -0600

From:  Charles F Juengling <juen0001[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GOLD.TC.UMN.EDU>

Subject: Re: Sulking Over Silky Milk & Other Words of That Ilk



On Mon, 30 Oct 1995, Peter McGraw wrote:



> Aside from one observation, no one seems to have acknowledged the fairly

> obvious fact that the l-loss under discussion here is phonologically

> conditioned. The rule deleting the l seems confined to the environment

> after back vowels. Clearly it's most solid (i.e. most general) after low

> back vowels (I would be amazed to the point of incredulity to hear of any

> AE speaker who pronounced an /l/ in "walk") and weakens with higher, to

> say nothing of front, vowels, so that I would be equally amazed to hear an

> American say /mIk/ for 'milk'

So would I, because all the people who I've ever heard who have no /l/ in

`milk' pronounce the word something like [mIuk] or [mIwk]. I don't know

what the situation is in the northern Valley, but in the central part,

[miuk] is not terribly common, but not so rare that it is surprising.

Fritz Juengling



 Then there's mid back /o/, after which,

> this discussion makes clear, there is considerable variation among, and

> uncertainty within, speakers. As a child, I seem to have extended this

> rule another notch: One day (I think I was in my teens), to my utter

> astonishment, my parents pointed it out as an amusing idiosyncrasy that I

> said, e.g., "big bad woof." At first I refused to believe that this

> wasn't what everybody said, but eventually I made a conscious effort to

> amend my pronunciation. I'm still aware of an effort every time I say

> /wUlf/.

>

> As for "folk," I'm sure I omit the /l/ in all combinations. The

> following /l/ would help me restore in in 'folklore', but I find it actually

> difficult to pronounce it in 'folkdance'.

>

> Peter McGraw

> Linfield College

> McMinnville, OR

>

> On Mon, 30 Oct 1995, Bethany Dumas, UTK wrote:

>

> > Thanks for getting me back in the thread. Yes, I have /l/s in many of the

> > other words. But I don't recall ever hearing anyone say an /l/ in

> > 'folk' or 'folklore' and I was beginning to think you were all crazy.

> >

> > Bethany

> > <dumasB[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]utk.edu>

> >

>