Words Ending with ood

Words ending with ood can be pronounced differently. The following list illustrates three different pronunciations:

blood
flood

good
hood
stood
wood

brood
food
mood
snood

The words blood and flood rhyme with mud. Only the first segment of the words is different. The second group of words rhymes with could and the final group rhymes with rude. The second group has a high back tense vowel and the third group has a high back lax one. 

Words with the ending ood  exhibit three different pronunciations. The vowel is pronounced as a high back tense vowel when it is word final as in too, but in the ending ood, the high back lax vowel is also common. The high mid central vowel of blood and flood occurs less frequently.

Intervocalic Voicing in Danish

In Danish all intervocalic plosives are voiced. The only exception is in the case of conservative speakers. This intervocalic voicing of all plosives doesn't occur in standard Norwegian and Swedish. The result is that the constrast between aspirated and unaspirated plosives is neutralized intervocalically.

In the minimal pair bil/pil (car/arrow), Danish has an unaspirated plosive in bil and an aspirated one in pil. However, in intervocalic position, only voiced plosives occur. The words suppe (soup), ikke (not) and otte (eight) have voiced plosives. They were once voiceless, as in Norwegian and Swedish, but became voiced. The consonant in otte (eight) is often realized as a flap rather than a plosive. In words such as pude (pillow), the d is a velarized alveolar fricative, a sound which occurs in no other European language.

Unlike many languages, Danish has a contrast between aspirated and unaspirated plosives rather than voiced and voiceless. In intervocalic position, however, the contrast is neutralized and only voiced plosives occur. The contrast between aspirated and unaspirated plosives and voicing of intervocalic plosives is also found in Icelandic.

English Tongue Twisters

Tongue twisters are not only fun but are also good for those who wish to improve their public speaking skills.  To say tongue twisters well it's important to concentrate and say them quickly while articulating well. Here are ten popular English tongue twisters:

1. She sells seashells by the seashore.
2. I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.
3. I saw a kitten eating chicken in the kitchen.
4. If a dog chews shoes, whose shoes does he choose?
5. Elizabeth's birthday is on the third Thursday of this month.
6. Wayne went to Wales to watch walruses.
7. I wish to wash my Irish wristwatch.
8. If coloured caterpillars could change their colours constantly, could they keep their coat coloured properly?
9. Fresh fried fish, fish fresh fried, fried fish fresh, fish fried fresh.
10. The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick.

Danish Glottal Stop

The Danish glottal stop can also be realized as creaky voice. Unique among languages, this feature is phonemic in Danish. Here is a list of Danish words which are distinguised by the glottal stop alone. The word on the right has the glottal stop:

hej (hi) haj (shark)
mor (mother) mord (murder)
hun (she) hund (dog)
maler (painter) maler (verb-paint/paints)
man (one-impersonal pronoun) mand (man)

The Danish glottal stop, also known as creaky voice, is phonemic. This is illustrated in the five minimal pairs. Though Norwegian and Swedish are related languages, they lack this feature of the Danish language.

Voiced Alveopalatal Fricative in English

The voiced alveopalatal fricative is not so common in English. The voiceless counterpart is far more common. Let us look at a few words in which the voiced alveopalatal fricative occurs.

Here is a list of ten words:

Asia
beige
casual
decision
garage
massage
measure
pleasure
treasure
visual

The voiced alveopalatal fricative often occurs word-medially. Notice that the word-medial position is also intervocalic as in Asia and decision. In fewer cases the fricative occurs word-finally as in beige and massage. The fricative seldom occurs word-initially. One example is genre, a word borrowed from French.

The voiced alveopalatal fricative is less common than other English fricatives. Among Germanic languages, only English has the sound. It is also found in French. The voiced alveopalatal fricative is most common in word-medial position but rare in word-initial.

Variable Pronunciation with Suffixation

Suffixes such as -ful, -ly and -ness can attach to many roots. However, the pronunciation of the final vowel of the root varies. Let us look at a few examples.

A number of suffixes can combine with beauty to produce words such as beautify, beautiful and beautification. In these cases the final vowel of beauty is pronounced as a schwa in the forms with suffixation. However, this is not the case with the compound beauty queen. Here the final vowel of beauty is pronounced as a high front tense vowel.

The suffix -ly can produce many adverbs. A few examples include angrily, crazily  and happily. In these cases the final vowel of angry, crazy and happy becomes a schwa in the forms with suffixation.

In the word merciful, the penultimate vowel is pronounced as a schwa. This is the same as in beautiful. However, in words such as friendliness and happiness the penultimate vowel is not realized as a schwa but rather as a high front tense vowel. The penultimate vowel of happily is different from the penultimate vowel of happiness.

How can we explain this disparity? Why are the penultimate vowels of forms such as happily and happiness different? In both cases the penultimate vowel is unstressed and the preceding syllable is stressed. The environments are very similar. The notable difference is in the segments of the final syllable. In happiness the final syllable is CVC and in happily it is CV. Thus we see a difference in syllable weight.

It is the case that with the final light syllable of happily, the penultimate vowel becomes a schwa, but with the final heavy syllable of happiness, the penultimate vowel remains a high front vowel. Though  -ness is a bound morpheme, for the purposes of pronunciation it functions as the second word of a compound as in beauty queen.

The final vowel of words such as beauty and happy becomes a schwa in forms with the derivational suffixes -ful and -ly such as beautiful and happily. However, the pronunciation of the final vowel does not change in forms with the suffix -ness as in friendliness and happiness. This reality counters the principle of the regularity of sound change.

Quick Resignation

In a game of speed chess, my opponent resigned after my tenth move. He was ramramcr of Costa Rica, who played black. Here are the moves of the game along with my commentary:

1. e4 c5
2. Nf3 Nc6
3. d4 e6

Black usually plays cxd.

4. d5 exd
5. exd Qe7+
6. Be2 Nb4

A better move for black is Ne5.

7. a3 Na6
8. Nc3 d6
9. 0-0 Qd7

Black blunders. He should play Qc7.

10. Bb5

The black queen cannot avoid capture. As a result, black resigns. Black's inability to develop his pieces and protect the king leads to his quick resignation.

Scottish Vowel Length Rule

The Scottish Vowel Length Rule, also known as Aitken's law, states that vowels tend to be long before the alveolar approximant, voiced fricatives and a morpheme boundary, but short elsewhere. Unlike in standard English, vowels are not long before voiced plosives. The rule was proposed by the Scottish linguist A.J. Aitken. Vowel length is conditioned by the phonetic environment of the target vowel, but the environment is more restricted than in standard English.

In standard English, the vowel of seed is longer than in seat. However, this doesn't apply to Scottish English, which maintains the same vowel length. The words leaf and leave have a difference in vowel length because leave ends with a voiced fricative.

The words greed and agreed have different vowel lengths. Though they both end with a voiced alveolar plosive, the word agreed has a morpheme boundary. The morphological structure can be represented as follows:

agree + (e)d = agreed

Whether the past tense marker ed was first suffixed and the vowel then deleted, or deletion occurred at the moment of suffixation is a matter of speculation. In any case, agreed consists of two morphemes. For this reason, agreed has a longer vowel than greed.

The Scottish Vowel Length Rule applies to the pronunciation of vowels in Scottish English. The rule is not categorical for all Scottish speakers. In the northern parts of Scotland, in particular, many specific words do not adhere to the rule. Nevertheless, the rule makes clear that vowels in Scottish English are pronounced differently than in other varieties of English.

Who Has Seen the Wind?

Christina Rossetti wrote many beautiful poems. Here is a short one:

Who Has Seen the Wind?

Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you.
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.
Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I.
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.

The rhyme scheme is a b c b d e f e. In the second and sixth verses, the pronouns I and you are reversed. In the seventh verse Christina Rossetti personifies trees. Who Has Seen the Wind? asks a rhetorical question. The poem is short and expressive.