Alternative Pronunciation of My

The word my can be pronounced the same as the word me. In England, the pronunciation is most common in northern England, the Midlands and working-class London speech such as Cockney. However, the pronunciation is also heard in Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland and parts of Australia and New Zealand.

The pronunciation of my with the same pronunciation of me only occurs when the possessive adjective is unstressed. In the question, Where's my phone?, the pronunciation of me is possible. However, this is not the case in the sentence It's my phone, not yours. The reason is that in this sentence the word my is stressed.

In England, the alternative pronunciation of my is common in the north, the Midlands and working-class London speech. It is common in all of the United Kingdom, Ireland and parts of Australia and New Zealand. However, the alternative pronunciation of my is only used when the word is unstressed. It is associated with casual speech.

The Spanish Pronoun Vos

In Spanish the second person singular subject pronoun can be tú or vos. In Spain only tú is used, but in Argentina the pronoun is vos. The pronoun vos is also used in Uruguay, Paraguay, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and Costa Rica. In most of Mexico, speakers use tú.

The two pronouns have different conjugations. For example, the sentence You are my neighbour can be Tú eres mi vecino or Vos sos mi vecino. The subject pronoun is not absolutely necessary and can thus be dropped. Also possible are Eres mi vecino and Sos mi vecino.

Spanish has two pronouns to express the second person singular subject pronoun. In many countries, the pronoun tú is used, but in other countries vos is popular. In Colombia, the pronoun tú is used in Bogota, but vos is used in Medellin. The use of the pronouns can even vary in one country.

Months in Asturian

Asturian is a Romance language spoken in northwestern Spain. To illustrate the vocabulary of Asturian, here are the days of the months along with the months in Spanish.

January xineru enero

February febreru febrero

March marzu marzo

April abril abril

May mayu mayo

June xunu junio

July xunetu julio

August agostu agosto

September setiembre septiembre

October ochobre octobre

November payares noviembre

December avientu diciembre

Notice that two months are very different, November and December. The word for April is identical in both languages. Spanish uses a word-final o in seven months, but Asturian uses word-final u.

Russian High Front and Central Vowels

The Russian high front and central vowels are often in complementary distribution. The high front unrounded vowel is very common among languages, but the high central unrounded vowel is not. Russian has the five full vowels of Spanish, and it also has unreduced vowels. The high central unrounded vowel is classified as a vowel phoneme by many, but there are linguists who claim it is an allophone of the high front unrounded vowel.

The Russian high front vowel occurs after soft consonants, and the high central occurs after hard consonants. The soft consonants are palatalized, and the hard ones are not. All Russian consonants can be classified into two groups, hard and soft.

Though the two vowels are often in complementary distribution, there are instances in which their distribution is contrastive. They can contrast in word-initial position. For this reason, many linguists consider the high central vowel a phoneme.

The high central vowel is relatively rare among languages. It always follows hard consonants. On the other hand, the high front vowel always follows soft consonants. The high central vowel is a vowel that distinguishes Russian from many other languages.

Danish Consonantal and Vocalic r

The Danish r can be both vocalic and consonantal. In the word ris (rice), it is consonantal. However, in the word bur (cage), it is vocalic. 

In contrast to other languages with vocalic r, the Danish r often vocalizes between vowels. This can be illustrated with the word irriterende. The word means irritating, and it is identical in Danish and Norwegian. However, in the Norwegian dialects with a uvular r, it is always pronounced as a consonant.

In Norwegian dialects with a uvular r, the word irriterende has two uvular consonants that are syllable initial. However, this is not the case in Danish. The first syllable of irriterende is a diphthong in Danish.and the third syllable is a vowel and glottal stop. As a result, the word irriterende is syllabified differently in Danish and Norwegian.

In Danish the letter r can be realized as a vowel and a consonant. This is also true in other languages such as German and many varieties of English. However, the Danish r is unique because it can also be vocalic when it occurs between two vowels.

Future Tense with Predictions and Conditional Statements

English has different ways of expressing the future. It can be expressed with will, going to and the present continuous. However, with predictions and conditional statements, only will and going to can be used.

The following sentence can be expressed in three ways:

I'll visit my grandparents this weekend.

I'm going to visit my grandparents this weekend.

I'm visiting my grandparents this weekend.

However, with predictions only will and going to can be used. It is possible to say It will rain tomorrow and It's going to rain tomorrow. Here the present continuous is not used.

The same is true for conditional sentences. Consider the following examples:

You have to study or you won't get a good grade.

You have to study or you aren't going to get a good grade.

These two sentences are conditional sentences. The first clause states what the listener must do, and the second expresses the result if the listener does not comply. The sentences can be restated with if and then. They then become the following:

If you do not study, you won't get a good grade.

If you do not study, you aren't going to get a good grade.

English can express the future in different ways. The present continuous can be used in many cases. However, with predictions and conditional sentences, the present continuous is not used to express the future.

Internal/External Locatives with Finnish Place Names

The Finnish language uses many postpositions. With Finnish cities, both internal and external locative cases are used. They can be translated in English as in and on. The internal locative is used for the city of Helsinki, but for the city of Tampere, the external locative is used. Let us illustrate with examples.

The following cities use internal locatives:

in Helsinki Helsingissä

in Lahti Lahdessa

in Lappeenranta Lappeenrannassa

in Joensuu Joensuussa

in Jyväskylä Jyväskylässä

in Kokkola Kokkolassa

Kuopio Kuopiossa

in Oulu Oulussa

in Porvoo Porvoossa

in Turku Turussa

The following cities use external locatives:

in Hyvinkää Hyvinkäällä

in Kouvola Kouvolalla

in Lapua Lapualla

in Mäntsälä Mäntsälällä

in Pieksämäki Pieksämäellä

in Riihimäki Riihimäellä

in Rovaniemi Rovaniemellä

in Seinäjoki Seinäjoella

in Tampere Tampereella

in Vantaa Vantaalla

In contrast to many other languages, Finnish uses postpositions. For cities they can be either internal or external locative cases. In addition to the correct use of the postposition, modifications to the base can also occur.