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Phonotactics\Syllable structure\Other onsets[edit]

In this section it lists /vl/ as an onset that only occurs in loanwords (with Vladimir as the example) but it exists in the very English word vlog, with it being the base for vlogs, vlogged, vlogging and vlogger. What do you think about moving it someplace else? The cool numel (talk) 21:11, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's a recent coinage, so it's considered marginal. Nardog (talk) 20:56, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The table lists /sfr/, /smj/, /gw, /pw/, /θl/, /vw/ all as onsets even tho as far as I can tell they all occur in very very few words. /vw/ occurs only in an interjection (voila) and /gw/ only occurs in a proper noun (Guam). Isn't vlog just as marginal as sphragisitcs? The cool numel (talk) 14:50, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Some of this was discussed back in 2009: Talk:English phonology/Archive 3#Loanwords. How natural they are depend on how common those specialised words are in your vocabulary: I have a /fθ/ for phthalate, but I didn't remember (or maybe even know) the word thlipsis before looking this page up. Having said that, I do think /vl/ is basically native by now: "vlog" has been around for over a decade. And maybe we should use other examples for initial /gw/ like guava or guano.
P.S. there's also very very few words ending /ln/; it's just that it occurs in one familiar example. So rarity is not by itself an argument. Double sharp (talk) 04:07, 12 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

More about lenis initial obstruent devoicing in GA?[edit]

In the whole article the only reference to any sort of devoicing of initial lenis obstruent devoicing in any accent of English is where it says that (phonemically) voiced initials can be "partially or entirely voiced" but in GenAm, there is hardly ever any real voicing in the initials of words like "bus" or "day". Perhaps a footnote in the phoneme chart regarding this, mentioning that they are typically realized as [b̥,d̥,g̥]? Ametalbaby (talk) 02:06, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Vowel phoneme chart for General American[edit]

Currently, the vowel phoneme tables show RP as having central vowels for GOOSE, FOOT and a back vowel for START, but GA as having back vowels for GOOSE, FOOT and a central vowel for START. I question whether this is a real distinction: while the position of START in American English varies, I think the Northern Cities Vowel Shift is generally not considered to be default "General American". Would a front vs. non-front setup work better? I also am not sure ɑ ɜ ɔ fit well into the lax/tense binary, given that ɑ functions as the lax counterpart of oʊ in the context of correspondences like "trisyllabic laxing". Does anyone else agree that the GA table should be revised? Urszag (talk) 17:36, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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