I don't think there is a hard and fast rule here. However: If you have a two syllable word that ends with an 'a', it's typical that the vowel in the first is short. Like 'dada', 'feta', etc. This is not a rule so much as a pattern that should

Hi Demicjusz (whom I call 'Demi' not because I thought you were female, but because the combination of vowels in your suffix are difficult to remember and copy down), No excuses, no analogies-- I just incorporate what sounds I seem to remember

The vowel /&/ seems to be politically incorrect. Notice how the media gradually started pronouncing Iraq as "erock". And then there was Bush's "Nevoda". Apparently, it is PC to change /&/ to /A/.

accent circonflexe) % is that diacritic I have never known the name ... smiley - so %u means a smiley over the u. That diacritic is called a "breve" in English. Thanks for that. I always wondered. - prince. There may well be people for

I stopped reading Katherine Kerr when the same mistake was perpetuated in her 3rd or 4th book: she gave 'thin' ... of an o - I like to call it a smiley - so %u means a smiley over the u. That diacritic is called a "breve" in

Didn't someone in a.u.e and sci.lang propose this phonemic constrast ... as /t/ in one word and /d/ in the other). Can you identify your two nuclei with those two nuclei? Phonetically, definitely. Phonemically - I guess so. My phonemic

I have come to the sudden realization that I don't ... and I can't say (wVjr). -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whom I pronounce them all in the same way. But I have heard others pronounce them differently, as you say. Fi-uhr, with a schwa. But no one

A.u.e: Does anyone else have these two different "-ire"s? Consciously or unconsciously? With the same distribution as mine or different? When I come to think about it, it appears that words in your first list are slightly shorter sounds.

Since 'Juan' is often pronounced as 'one', this is getting confusing. The standard AmE Anglicized pronunciation of "Juan" has the 'father' vowel (rhyming with "John" in most AmE dialects); Hum. I've

I'm confused by your "help" reference. What I intended to ... AmE dictionary that I have seen. Thanks for the help. To a Southerner, (hEj@lp) is exactly the pronunciation that an AmE dictionay indicates. And it's not necessarily