How's and House - are they pronounced differently?

1 2

Share on Facebook

Anonymous

#466591 Sun, 20 Jan 08 11:33 AM

Hi Cool Breeze,

How's and house are different in that how's is a contraction of how and is, two words, and the rule applies at least in theory in such cases.

This is exactly the rule I had in mind! What you offered previously simply was not clear enough to the reader.

The only pronunciation Webster's Unabridged Dictionary gives for houses is with two voiced s's but of course I know that not all people pronounce it that way.

Sadly I made a mistake in my previous posting: the correct phoneme symbol for the s's in 'houses' is indeed /z/, although of course English /z/ can be rather /s/-like.

Anonymous

Contractions, Pronunciation

Pter

#466636 Sun, 20 Jan 08 01:39 PM

Anonymous wrote:

Sadly I made a mistake in my previous posting: the correct phoneme symbol for the s's in 'houses' is indeed /z/, although of course English /z/ can be rather /s/-like.

Hi,

I am now confused even more than before. House is pronounced [haʊs], and because it ends with "s", a voiceless consonant, [aʊ] is shortened. However, when it is changed to plural, the pronunciation is now [haʊziz] and [aʊ] is now followed by a voiced "z". Is [aʊ] still shortened in this case (that would be a violation of the pre-fortis clipping rule)? Or do native speakers really pronounce the [aʊ] in [haʊziz] longer than that in [haʊs]?

Pter

Joined on Wed, Nov 28 2007

Hong Kong

Full Member (428)

Consonants, Plurals, Pronunciation

Kooyeen

#466712 Sun, 20 Jan 08 04:25 PM

Oh, I was forgetting about vowel length... You guys are right. I just didn't think about that because it seems to me that in some cases the distinction is not very noticeable, especially in diphthongs. I can definitely tell the difference between "got" and "god", but I don't think there's such a noticeable difference between "how's" and "house", for example...

Kooyeen

Joined on Thu, Dec 22 2005

Italy

Senior Member (3,973)

If you don't have a sense of humor already, it's about time you buy one.

Difference between, Diphthongs, Vowels

Anonymous

#466720 Sun, 20 Jan 08 04:59 PM

Hi Pter,

Sorry for confusing you even more. Whenever a phonemically long English vowel sound or diphthong (or indeed a triphthong) is followed by a voiceless sound it is phonetically shortened (this is referred to as pre-fortis clipping). Therefore, the diphthong in 'house' is shorter than that in 'houses'. Mastery of this rule will help you communicate more effectively.

Anonymous

Diphthongs, Vowels

1 2