Th-stopping (original) (raw)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pronouncing "th" as "t" or "d"

_Th_-stopping is the realization of the dental fricatives [θ, ð] as stops—either dental or alveolar—which occurs in several dialects of English. In some accents, such as of Indian English and middle- or upper-class Irish English, they are realized as the dental stops [t̪, d̪] and as such do not merge with the alveolar stops /t, d/; thus, for example, tin ([tʰɪn] in Ireland and [ʈɪn] in India) is not a homophone of thin [t̪ʰɪn].[1] In other accents, such as varieties of Caribbean English, Nigerian English, Liberian English, and older, rural, or working-class Irish English, such pairs are indeed merged.[1] Variation between both dental and alveolar forms exists in much of the working-class English speech of North America and sometimes southern England. It is also common for babies and toddlers, who are still learning to talk and/or have not fully grown their front teeth capable of producing the th sound.[_citation needed_] _Th_-stopping occurred in all continental Germanic languages, resulting in cognates such as German die for "the" and Bruder for "brother".

New York City English

[edit]

For the working class of New York City and its surrounding region, the fricatives /θ/ and /ð/ are often pronounced as affricatives or stops, rather than as fricatives. Usually they remain dental, so that the oppositions /t-θ/ and [d-ð] are not lost. Thus thanks may be pronounced [θæŋks], [tθæŋks], or [t̪æŋks] in decreasing order of occurrence;[_citation needed_] all are distinct from tanks [tʰæŋks]. The [t̪] variant has a weakish articulation. The /t-θ/ opposition may be lost, exceptionally in the environment of a following /r/ (making three homophonous with tree), and in the case of the word with, (so that with a may rhyme with the non-rhotic pronunciation of bitter-bidder; with you may be [wɪtʃu], following the same yod-coalescence rule as hit you. These pronunciations are all stigmatized.[_citation needed_]

The [d-ð] opposition seems to be lost more readily, though not as readily as the "Brooklynese" stereotype might lead one to believe. As in many other places, initial [ð] is subject to assimilation or deletion in a range of environments in relatively informal and/or popular speech, e.g. who's there [huz (z)ɛə]; as in many other places, it is also subject to stopping there /dɛə/. This option extends to one or two words in which the /ð/ is not initial, e.g. other, which can thus become a homonym of utter-udder. But it would not be usual for southern to be pronounced identically with sudden or breathe with breed.[_citation needed_]

African-American Vernacular English

[edit]

In African-American Vernacular English, in the words with and nothing, [t] may occur corresponding to standard [θ], with the [t] itself being succeeded by the _t_-glottalization rule: thus [wɪʔ] for with and [ˈnʌʔɪn] for nothing.[2]: 83 _Th_-stopping is also reported for some other non-initial [θ]s, apparently particularly when preceded by a nasal and followed by a plosive, as keep your mouth closed.[2]: 90 In initial position, [θ] occurs in AAVE just as in standard accents: thin is [θɪn], without the stopping of West Indian accents.[3] Stopping of initial [ð], however, is frequent, making then pronounced as [d̪ɪ̃n] or sometimes homophonous with den.

Frequency in other accents

[edit]

_Th_-stopping is also commonly heard, specifically from speakers of working-class origins, in the American English dialects of the Inland North (for example, in Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, and Buffalo), the Upper Midwest (for example, in the especially Fennoscandian-descended locals of Minnesota's Iron Range and Michigan's Upper Peninsula), and the Mid-Atlantic region (for example, in Philadelphia and Baltimore).[4] It is also heard in a minority of speakers of England's Estuary dialect (for example, in London), but only in the case of word-initial /ð/.[5] Many speakers of Philippine English and some speakers of other variants in Asia also have _th_-stopping.

The dialect of Sheffield in England is sometimes referred to as "dee-dar" because of the _th_-stopping to change initial /ð/ to /d/. However, a 1997 study in Sheffield found this was then largely confined to older males.[6]

In certain international radiotelecommunications, such as the NATO phonetic alphabet, the digit code words three and thousand are pronounced [tʰɹiː] and [ˈtʰaʊz(ə)nd] to avoid mispronouncing them as [sɹiː] and [ˈsaʊz(ə)nd].[7][8]

• List of Th-stopping homophones
• Th-fronting
• Definite article reduction

1. ^ a b Wells, J.C. (1989). The British Isles. Accents of English. Vol. 2. Cambridge: University Press. pp. 565–66, 635. ISBN 9780521285407.
2. ^ a b Wolfram, Walter A. (September 1970). "A Sociolinguistic Description of Detroit Negro Speech". Language. 46 (3): 764. doi:10.2307/412325. ISSN 0097-8507. JSTOR 412325.
3. ^ Wolfram 1969, p. 130, does however mention the use of 'a lenis [t]' as a rare variant.
4. ^ van den Doel, Rias (2006). How Friendly Are the Natives? An Evaluation of Native-Speaker Judgements of Foreign-Accented British and American English (PDF). Landelijke onderzoekschool taalwetenschap (Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics). p. 268.
5. ^ van den Doel 2006, p. 251.
6. ^ Stoddart, Jana; Upton, Clive; Widdowson, J.D.A. (1999), "Sheffield dialect in the 1990s: revisiting the concept of NORMs", Urban Voices, London: Arnold, pp. 76, 79
7. ^ "IMO Standard Marine Communication Phrases (SMCP)" (PDF). Rijeka: International Maritime Organization. 4 April 2000. Archived (PDF) from the original on 22 February 2019.
8. ^ Annex 10 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation: Aeronautical Telecommunications; Volume II Communication Procedures including those with PANS status (7th ed.). International Civil Aviation Organization. July 2016. p. §5.2.1.3, Figure 5–1. Archived from the original on 11 July 2022.