Date:  Sat, 22 Nov 1997 15:38:22 -0500
From:  "Dennis R. Preston" <preston[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]PILOT.MSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: pragmatic change in progress?

Well, I'm older than 54 and this discoursal or exlamatopry 'why' is
completely native to me.

Here's a funny fact about it though.

I'm a /hw/-/w/ distinguisher; that is, 'whale' and 'wail' are not
homophones for me.

BUT - interrogative why ('Why did you do that?') is always /hw/ in my
speech, and the discourse marker 'why' ('Why, it's on the the other side of
the room') is invariably /w/.

Any other standard speakers out there like me who have this distinction
(not /hw/ - /w/ in general; lots of us old codgers from some places have
that, but this specific sepaation of the two 'whys')?

DInIS

PS: Of course, if you don't have the distinction at all, then you're just
not a speaker of standard American English. The best proof of that I can
think of right off the top of my head (where such comments all seem to come
from) is that you don't sound like me.

>At 10:55 PM 11/21/97 -0500, Ron Butters wrote:
>
>> I had a lot of trouble getting my students to focus on the meaning
>> differences between WELL and WHY in these environments. Though they
>> understood the differences, they kept saying, "But nobody under age
>50 would
>> ever use WHY in that way--only old people talk that way!" This was
>not the
>> answer I expected. Has anybody else had this reaction from students
>about WHY
>> in this usage? What are the reactions of y'all? Is there a change
>in progress
>> here?
>
>I'm 54, and I'm sure I've never used "why" this way except when
>conciously imitating someone else's style. I perceive it as both
>older generation and predominately female. Instead of "why" I'd use
>either "of course" or an intonation pattern that indicates "I'm
>surprised you asked".
>
>David Johns
>Waycross College
>Waycross, GA 31501
>djohns[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]peachnet.campus.mci.net

Dennis R. Preston
Department of Linguistics and Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
preston[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]pilot.msu.edu
Office: (517)353-0740
Fax: (517)432-2736