Tuesday 21 October 2014

weakform of something

In LPD3 the pron of something as /sʌmɪŋ/ is described as casual; EPD18 doesn't indicate any weakform for it. Paul Carley with his truffel-spotting ears discovered a recent sample of this weakform. It was used by the philosopher etc. Raymond C. Tallis

credit: www.3quarksdaily.com
in a BBC Radio 4 speech titled "The Waiting".
Here's the phrase: "Indeed, a story could be described as something that is withheld."




2 comments:

  1. Lovely. Keep them coming. Note that this is hardly a speech tempo effect, he's speaking very carefully. For the same reason it's not "careless". I'd guess this is his regular pronunciation, especially if it's spontaneous. There's a similar example in Swedish, the word naturligtvis (naturally), usually quoted in Swedish phonetic literature as [na'tʉ:s] with two syllables instead of four, as an example of speech rate effect. I've only heard it once, on the radio, a lawyer who was speaking slowly and deliberately.

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    Replies
    1. I quite agree: It*s careful speech throughout and it's scripted.

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