Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Read, James C" <K0434995 AT kingston.ac.uk>]

>Do I need to go back to linguistics 101? Apparently so. In 
>English there are three words, "two", "too" and "to". All 
>three have exactly the same pronunciation. If they were 
>spelled phonetically, they would be given the same 
>spelling.

Actually, 'two' and 'too' have the same phonetics but 'to' is 
most often different.
Pronounse out loud these examples:

I'm going to be late
He went to the pub
Let's drink to friendship

I'm sure you'll agree that the vowel in 'to' is usually a schewa unless 
we want to emaphsize it in order to clarify a misunderstanding

e.g. 'I said "He went *to* the shop" not "*from* the shop"'

This email has been scanned for all viruses by the MessageLabs Email
Security System.
>From kwrandolph AT email.com  Sat Oct 29 10:02:39 2005
Return-Path: <kwrandolph AT email.com>
X-Original-To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Delivered-To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Received: from webmail-outgoing.us4.outblaze.com
        (webmail-outgoing2.us4.outblaze.com [205.158.62.67])
        by lists.ibiblio.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2B2934C005
        for <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>; Sat, 29 Oct 2005 10:02:39 -0400 
(EDT)
Received: from unknown (unknown [192.168.9.180])
        by webmail-outgoing.us4.outblaze.com (Postfix) with QMQP id
        8BA5F1800136
        for <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>; Sat, 29 Oct 2005 14:02:38 +0000 
(GMT)
X-OB-Received: from unknown (205.158.62.182)
        by wfilter.us4.outblaze.com; 29 Oct 2005 14:02:38 -0000
Received: by ws1-6.us4.outblaze.com (Postfix, from userid 1001)
        id 842041CE304; Sat, 29 Oct 2005 14:02:38 +0000 (GMT)
Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
MIME-Version: 1.0
From: "Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>
To: b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Date: Sat, 29 Oct 2005 09:02:38 -0500
Received: from [71.133.108.184] by ws1-6.us4.outblaze.com with http for
        kwrandolph AT email.com; Sat, 29 Oct 2005 09:02:38 -0500
X-Originating-Ip: 71.133.108.184
X-Originating-Server: ws1-6.us4.outblaze.com
Message-Id: <20051029140238.842041CE304 AT ws1-6.us4.outblaze.com>
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Ayin and Ghayin
X-BeenThere: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.6
Precedence: list
List-Id: Hebrew Bible List <b-hebrew.lists.ibiblio.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew>,
        <mailto:b-hebrew-request AT lists.ibiblio.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/b-hebrew>
List-Post: <mailto:b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
List-Help: <mailto:sympa AT lists.ibiblio.org?subject=HELP>
List-Subscribe: <http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew>,
        <mailto:b-hebrew-request AT lists.ibiblio.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 29 Oct 2005 14:02:39 -0000

James:

Which dialect of English are you speaking? The way I 
was taught to speak, and which I continue to use, is to 
pronounce all three examples exactly the same, and 
exactly the same as "two" and "too". Your final example 
shows how a person will slow down and pronounce "to" 
correctly to clear up misunderstanding caused by sloppy 
pronunciation.

In literature writers sometimes misspell "to" to follow the 
sloppy pronunciation that many people use, but it is 
recognized that such pronunciation is nonstandard.

This goes back to the questions of Greek transliterations 
of Hebrew and Hebrew pronunciations, but we don't need 
to go into that again.

Karl W. Randolph.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Read, James C" <K0434995 AT kingston.ac.uk>
> 
> 
> > Do I need to go back to linguistics 101? Apparently so. In 
> > English there are three words, "two", "too" and "to". All three 
> > have exactly the same pronunciation. If they were spelled 
> > phonetically, they would be given the same spelling.
> 
> Actually, 'two' and 'too' have the same phonetics but 'to' is
> most often different.
> Pronounse out loud these examples:
> 
> I'm going to be late
> He went to the pub
> Let's drink to friendship
> 
> I'm sure you'll agree that the vowel in 'to' is usually a schewa unless
> we want to emaphsize it in order to clarify a misunderstanding
> 
> e.g. 'I said "He went *to* the shop" not "*from* the shop"'

-- 
___________________________________________________
Play 100s of games for FREE! http://games.mail.com/