how do you pronounce sure and coupon?
also, could you list pronunciations that are specific to GCE (general canadian english) ?
also, could you list pronunciations that are specific to GCE (general canadian english) ?
Quick pronunciation question
Sure and coupon are pronounced [Sr\=] and /kjupAn/. /kupAn/ is also a valid (non-regional) variant pronunciation of "coupon" in North American English.
<<Sure and coupon are pronounced [Sr\=] and /kjupAn/. /kupAn/ is also a valid (non-regional) variant pronunciation of "coupon" in North American English.>>
I think you've got things reversed. /"ku:pAn/ is by far the predominant pronunciation in American English, and it's consistent with the pronunciations used in other English-speaking countries; /"kju:pAn/ is a variant which is unique to North American English, and used by a minority of North Americans. The Dialect Survey ( http://www4.uwm.edu/FLL/linguistics/dialect/staticmaps/q_7.html ) gives 67% for /"kupAn/ and 31% for /"kjupAn/. I can't vouch for Canadian English in particular.
As for "sure", the more traditional or conservative pronunciation in North America would be /SU@`/ (rendered variously as /SUr\/, /Sur\/, etc.). The more progressive pronunciation /S3`/ (also rendered as /Sr\=/) has become very common and might even be predominant.
I think you've got things reversed. /"ku:pAn/ is by far the predominant pronunciation in American English, and it's consistent with the pronunciations used in other English-speaking countries; /"kju:pAn/ is a variant which is unique to North American English, and used by a minority of North Americans. The Dialect Survey ( http://www4.uwm.edu/FLL/linguistics/dialect/staticmaps/q_7.html ) gives 67% for /"kupAn/ and 31% for /"kjupAn/. I can't vouch for Canadian English in particular.
As for "sure", the more traditional or conservative pronunciation in North America would be /SU@`/ (rendered variously as /SUr\/, /Sur\/, etc.). The more progressive pronunciation /S3`/ (also rendered as /Sr\=/) has become very common and might even be predominant.
Well, I use the one with the glide. I've heard the other version only three times: once on a radio advertisement. It sounded sort of like "onvelopes" (envelopes) or "aither" (either) to me. I've heard my grandpa pronounce it like that once as well--but only once. He usually uses the glide. I decided to pronounce it like that as well once, but my friend laughed at me, so I reverted back to my old pronunciation of kyoopon. For the people that pronounce it as "coop on", how does the other pronunciation (kyoopon) sound to you? I know that for me, "coop on" sounds a little weird.
<<Well, I use the one with the glide. I've heard the other version only three times: once on a radio advertisement. It sounded sort of like "onvelopes" (envelopes) or "aither" (either) to me. I've heard my grandpa pronounce it like that once as well--but only once. He usually uses the glide.>>
But just to be clear, the without-glide pronunciation is strongly predominant in North America, as you can see from the survey result. In fact there's another language forum that I'm on, Unilang, where somebody said that his friends thought he was weird because he used the with-glide pronunciation. So there might be pockets of variation throughout the country, where one or the other form is more common. But the with-glide pronunciation is the innovative pronunciation, and the less common one overall.
<<For the people that pronounce it as "coop on", how does the other pronunciation (kyoopon) sound to you?>>
The with-glide pronunciation sounds weird to me - most people where I live use the without-glide pronunciation.
<<I've never heard that one before.>>
Really? It rhymes with "tour", for example. (Note that there are different conventions for transcribing rhoticized vowels - you could transcribe this one as [SU@`], [SUr\] or [Sur\].)
But just to be clear, the without-glide pronunciation is strongly predominant in North America, as you can see from the survey result. In fact there's another language forum that I'm on, Unilang, where somebody said that his friends thought he was weird because he used the with-glide pronunciation. So there might be pockets of variation throughout the country, where one or the other form is more common. But the with-glide pronunciation is the innovative pronunciation, and the less common one overall.
<<For the people that pronounce it as "coop on", how does the other pronunciation (kyoopon) sound to you?>>
The with-glide pronunciation sounds weird to me - most people where I live use the without-glide pronunciation.
<<I've never heard that one before.>>
Really? It rhymes with "tour", for example. (Note that there are different conventions for transcribing rhoticized vowels - you could transcribe this one as [SU@`], [SUr\] or [Sur\].)
In fact, if you're interested, you could check the state-by-state survey results here: http://www4.uwm.edu/FLL/linguistics/dialect/staticmaps/states.html . In my state, Massachusetts, the without-glide version predominates 73% to 25%; in California, for example, it predominates 70% to 28%. But then (just looking around), in Missouri the with-glide version predominates 50% to 49%, and in Kansas the without-glide version predominates 50% to 48%. In fact I could list which states prefer which version:
Without Glide:
Alaska
Alabama (close)
Arkansas (very close)
Arizona
California
Colorado
Connecticut
DC
Delaware
Florida
Hawaii
Idaho (close)
Illinois
Indiana
Kentucky (very close)
Louisiana
Massachusetts
Maryland
Maine
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi (very close)
Montana (very close)
North Carolina (close)
North Dakota (very close)
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico (close)
Nevada (close)
New York
Ohio (close)
Oregon (close)
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
Tennessee (very close)
Texas (very close)
Utah
Virginia
Vermont
Washington
Wisconsin
With Glide:
Georgia (very close)
Iowa (close)
Kansas (very close)
Missouri (very close)
Nebraska (close)
Oklahoma (very close)
South Dakota (close)
West Virginia (very close)
Wyoming (very close)
So the with-glide pronunciation predominates in much of the South, the rural Midwest, and parts of the Rocky Mountain area.
Without Glide:
Alaska
Alabama (close)
Arkansas (very close)
Arizona
California
Colorado
Connecticut
DC
Delaware
Florida
Hawaii
Idaho (close)
Illinois
Indiana
Kentucky (very close)
Louisiana
Massachusetts
Maryland
Maine
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi (very close)
Montana (very close)
North Carolina (close)
North Dakota (very close)
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico (close)
Nevada (close)
New York
Ohio (close)
Oregon (close)
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
Tennessee (very close)
Texas (very close)
Utah
Virginia
Vermont
Washington
Wisconsin
With Glide:
Georgia (very close)
Iowa (close)
Kansas (very close)
Missouri (very close)
Nebraska (close)
Oklahoma (very close)
South Dakota (close)
West Virginia (very close)
Wyoming (very close)
So the with-glide pronunciation predominates in much of the South, the rural Midwest, and parts of the Rocky Mountain area.
But I should note that it's still found at 20 to 30% frequency throughout the rest of the country - even though the Northeast seems rather resistant to the with-glide pronunciation, I have heard it up here on occasion. The person I mentioned on Unilang comes from one of the close states, so his account (his family using the glide and most of his peers not using it) sort of makes sense.
>> Really? It rhymes with "tour", for example. (Note that there are different conventions for transcribing rhoticized vowels - you could transcribe this one as [SU@`], [SUr\] or [Sur\].) <<
Interesting, I've never heard "sure" pronounced to rhyme with "tour". I've only heard it like "ensure" without the "en". The "tour" pronunciation must be the Southern or back East pronunciation.
Interesting, I've never heard "sure" pronounced to rhyme with "tour". I've only heard it like "ensure" without the "en". The "tour" pronunciation must be the Southern or back East pronunciation.
<<I've only heard it like "ensure" without the "en".>>
Well, speakers who pronounced "sure" as ["SU@`] would also pronounce "ensure" the same way, [In"SU@`]. "Sure" is part of a whole class of words, like "pure", "cure", "mature", that are affected by an ongoing switch from [U@`] to [3`] in North American English.
<<The "tour" pronunciation must be the Southern or back East pronunciation.>>
Well it's the more conservative (i.e. the "original" or older) pronunciation. But there's been a tendency throughout the English speaking world to use more innovative pronunciations in its stead: in British English, a sound shift has occurred where most speakers now pronounce "sure" to rhyme with "more", and a lot of American English speakers (perhaps most of them) now pronounce "sure" to rhyme with "fur". (I'm kind of variable myself, using both the "tour" and "fur" pronunciations.) But yeah, the more conservative "tour" pronunciation is probably more common here on the East Coast than in the rest of the county.
Well, speakers who pronounced "sure" as ["SU@`] would also pronounce "ensure" the same way, [In"SU@`]. "Sure" is part of a whole class of words, like "pure", "cure", "mature", that are affected by an ongoing switch from [U@`] to [3`] in North American English.
<<The "tour" pronunciation must be the Southern or back East pronunciation.>>
Well it's the more conservative (i.e. the "original" or older) pronunciation. But there's been a tendency throughout the English speaking world to use more innovative pronunciations in its stead: in British English, a sound shift has occurred where most speakers now pronounce "sure" to rhyme with "more", and a lot of American English speakers (perhaps most of them) now pronounce "sure" to rhyme with "fur". (I'm kind of variable myself, using both the "tour" and "fur" pronunciations.) But yeah, the more conservative "tour" pronunciation is probably more common here on the East Coast than in the rest of the county.
So, for some people, are "shore" and "sure" homophones? This reminds me of an episode of Frasier where Daphne tries to imititate the American accent, and kept saying "sure" with the "shore"-type pronunciation.
And actually, saying that people rhyme "sure" with "tour" isn't saying much, since people have very different ways of saying "tour". Some people pronounce "tour" with the same vowel sound that I use for "sure". With non-standard dialects, I can have trouble distinguishing "tourist" and "terrorist", which makes for very interesting interpretations.
Around here in southeastern Wisconsin such seems to be very lexically inconsistent. For instance, there is alternation between [u(ː)ʁ] and [ʁ̩(ː)] in "sure", "pure", "cure", and "mature", with the former being primarily used only in more stressed/careful speech, but there are very many other words in which no such thing occurs and only [u(ː)ʁ] is found, such as "tour", "lure", "boor" (as in "boorish"), and "moor". Of course, then practically all cases that could have been [u(ː)ʁ] today which fall in unstressed syllables, such as many "-ure" words without final stress, such a shift has been total here, with practically all such examples being found here with [ʁ̩(ː)] today outside the most formal of speech.
<<So, for some people, are "shore" and "sure" homophones? This reminds me of an episode of Frasier where Daphne tries to imititate the American accent, and kept saying "sure" with the "shore"-type pronunciation.>>
A sure-shore homophony isn't so common in the US - I think it's considered a rural Southern feature here, to the extent that it occurs - but I think it's predominant in England. (So it makes sense that Daphne would have it in Frasier.) For example, the Cambridge Online Dictionary gives /SO:/ as the only pronunciation of "sure" for British English.
<<And actually, saying that people rhyme "sure" with "tour" isn't saying much, since people have very different ways of saying "tour". Some people pronounce "tour" with the same vowel sound that I use for "sure".>>
Yeah, the /U@`/ phoneme seems to be quite unstable in modern English dialects, with /3`/ or /O@`/ often taking its place.
A sure-shore homophony isn't so common in the US - I think it's considered a rural Southern feature here, to the extent that it occurs - but I think it's predominant in England. (So it makes sense that Daphne would have it in Frasier.) For example, the Cambridge Online Dictionary gives /SO:/ as the only pronunciation of "sure" for British English.
<<And actually, saying that people rhyme "sure" with "tour" isn't saying much, since people have very different ways of saying "tour". Some people pronounce "tour" with the same vowel sound that I use for "sure".>>
Yeah, the /U@`/ phoneme seems to be quite unstable in modern English dialects, with /3`/ or /O@`/ often taking its place.
>>Yeah, the /U@`/ phoneme seems to be quite unstable in modern English dialects, with /3`/ or /O@`/ often taking its place.<<
/ʊɚ/ phoneme? Sorry, but I just can't help but feel amused by the idea that just because there are limited vowel distinctions before /r/ in most English dialects and that the vowels that do show up there often differ in quality from its counterpart(s) not before /r/ that the vowel and the /r/ after it actually form a single phoneme together. (Yes, I know we've certainly discussed this one before.)
The biggest reason is that for some historical /ɑː/ seems to be treated differently from other vowels before /r/; having a /ɑɚ/ would certainly be far more consistent than not having such in such a view of English phonology. Hell, my own dialect has very strong r-coloring of its /a/ before /r/, much stronger than its r-coloring of /e/ before /r/, with it being realized as a strongly backed [ɑ(ː)] or even as [ɒ(ː)], in some idiolects, in such positions. (Notably, /ɑɔ̯/ and /a/ before /r/ followed by another may merge as [ɑ] whereas /ɑɔ̯/ never merges with /a/ in any other position.)
/ʊɚ/ phoneme? Sorry, but I just can't help but feel amused by the idea that just because there are limited vowel distinctions before /r/ in most English dialects and that the vowels that do show up there often differ in quality from its counterpart(s) not before /r/ that the vowel and the /r/ after it actually form a single phoneme together. (Yes, I know we've certainly discussed this one before.)
The biggest reason is that for some historical /ɑː/ seems to be treated differently from other vowels before /r/; having a /ɑɚ/ would certainly be far more consistent than not having such in such a view of English phonology. Hell, my own dialect has very strong r-coloring of its /a/ before /r/, much stronger than its r-coloring of /e/ before /r/, with it being realized as a strongly backed [ɑ(ː)] or even as [ɒ(ː)], in some idiolects, in such positions. (Notably, /ɑɔ̯/ and /a/ before /r/ followed by another may merge as [ɑ] whereas /ɑɔ̯/ never merges with /a/ in any other position.)