Date: Sat, 8 Apr 1995 09:45:00 EDT
From: "Dennis.Preston" 22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.EDU
Subject: Re: Southern Shuft
My congratulations to Garland Bills for noticing that my first name (Dennis)
has already undergone neutralization (at [I]) in the first syllable and,
therefore, when it undergoes the Southern Shift, it is properly realized as
[di[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]nIs] not [deynIs] which would have been the case if the earlier form were
[dEnIs]. It is in these subtle (sub-tile) ways that we catch y'all when y'all
doing your Beverly Hillbilles and Dukes of Hazard acts.
Note, by the way, that the lax (unstressed) [I] in the second syllable of my
name does not undergo the Southern Shift since the lack of stress on the
syllable takes it out of the peripheral (tense) classification. Here we could
catch you too. You might think that you had got the Southern Shift stuff down
and say [di[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]n[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]s], not realizing that many schwa positions in Southern and
South Midlands varieties are [I]. Worse, you might have known that but applied
the Southern Shift to both syllables, yielding the impossible [di[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ni[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]s].
Either way, you would have been found out, y'all wannabe sweet-talkers you.
[di[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]nIs] Preston (Let's see who can do the last name right!)
22709mgr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msu.edu
changing to
preston[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]pilot.msu.edu