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ranjit_mathews@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
> benlizro@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> > I've suddenly become aware that in my English "donkey" and "monkey"
> > seem to have a geminate /k/. At least, "donkey" is not an exact rhyme
> > with "honky" or "shonky", and "monkey" is not an exact rhyme with
> > "funky" or "flunky". And that's what the phonetic difference seems to
> > be.
>
> Unless your "Monk Key" and "monkey" are nearly indistinguishable, it
> seems possible that you have either [maNNki] or [maN] with different
> pitch (F0) from [ki] or both. To see if it is [maNNki], compare your
> "hung key" with your "monkey" and "hunky".
Definitely not a geminate /N/. The difference with hypothetical "monk
key" (or more plausibly "trunk key") would be not in the consonants, but
that the compound would have a secondary stress on the "key", which
"monkey" does not have.
>
> > It reminds me of the fact I think I mentioned here a few years ago,
> > that I have geminate /t/ in "thirteen" and "fourteen". I doubt if the
> > two cases are related, except insofar as they show how phonemic
> > differences in the shape of common words can persist for years
> > unnoticed.
> >
> > Of course geminates are common in English when two of the same
> > consonant come together at a morpheme boundary, as in "hot-tub" or
> > "sackcloth". But I don't see any such explanation for these cases.
>
> Well, from an Indian bias Americans' "funky" sounds normally pronounced
> and "monkey" sounds oddly pronounced. It seems to me that monkey is
> pronounced like 2 words; i.e., with greater similarity in pronunciation
> to "hung key" than to "hunky" but possibly a different intonation from
> "hung key".
Interesting. I look forward to introspections from Americans.
Ross Clark
>
> > I don't even have my pronouncing dictionaries here at the moment, so I
> > don't know whether these pronunciations are recognized variants.
> > Anybody know?
> >
> > Ross Clark
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