Date: Sat, 1 Nov 1997 20:53:52 -0600

From: "Donald M. Lance" engdl[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]SHOWME.MISSOURI.EDU

Subject: Re: Ast for Ask



Isn't ast for ask fairly easy to understand just in articulatory terms?

When

you pronounce the s, you then have to move your tongue way back in your

mouth to do the velar k. But if (without really thinking about it) you kind

of naturally slip into making things a bit easier on yourself, tonguewise,

then from an "s" tongue-position in the mouth, the nearest voiceless stop

for an English speaker is t, not k.



You guys may be making a little too much of "ease of articulation." Ron

seemed to say that we move the apex of the tongue way back to make the [k].

I doubt that he meant quite that; I also doubt that all of his brain was in

gear as he was typing - like I am sometimes.



Do the people who say ast for ask also say bast for bask? And bastet for

basket? Some, maybe. "Is he basking in the sun?" "I'll ast him. He's a

real bastet case." When an adult says bastet, we assume some sort of

defect in maturation, but we attribute ast to dialect or

ease-of-articulation assimilation. What gives?