4 ms·
Words differing in tone are only the same from a linguistically chauvinistic perspective.
by maaku 11y ago
Words differing in tone are only the same from a linguistically chauvinistic perspective.
- rosser 11y agoYou don't think there are differences in tone between many homonyms in English? No, it's not a "tonal" language, but that absolutely doesn't mean they don't exist, or aren't widely used. Or is your assertion that "Buffalo buffalo..." is pronounced by repeating the exact same pattern of sound eight times?
- peteretep 11y agoYou're confusing stresses and tones. I think if you say the phrase "to buffalo" and "a buffalo", you'll pronounce those words in the same way. It's only when putting a sentence together that you'll stress them differently to indicate their usage in that sentence. In tonal languages, you always say the word with the given tone, regardless of context.
- kybernetikos 11y agoPeople can often tell the difference between "vial" and "vile", even though I feel like I'm pronouncing them the exact same way.
- marvy 11y agoI suddenly want to try this experiment
- oneeyedpigeon 11y agoSimply ask someone else, out loud to spell the word [...] and pick one or the other. Would be interesting if you get > 50% hit rate.
- pbhjpbhj 11y agoVile is a more common word. Some adults probably don't know the word vial at all.
- kybernetikos 11y agoYes, because of this, I always say them both and ask them which I said first.
- rwj 11y agoExcept that vial has 2 syllables, and vile has only 1 syllable.
- taejo 11y agoIn your accent (and lots of other people's too, but not in mine, and apparently not in that of the person you're responding to). The sequence /aɪl/ never appears in my English dialect: there's always a schwa-ish sound before the /l/
- Houshalter 11y agoIn what accent? They sound the same to me. "Vy-uhl". How do you pronounce them?
- thedaemon 11y agoVyle. Like Gomer Pyle. I'm from the southern US and pronounce these words differently, one and two syllables.
- mrob 11y agoBritish English (and American English?) sometimes uses stress to distinguish between nouns and verbs written the same way, eg. "record a record", "permit a permit", "present a present". It's possible that "buffalo a buffalo" should ideally have this difference, but buffalo is so rare as a verb that the difference has been lost.
- duaneb 11y ago> Or is your assertion that "Buffalo buffalo..." is pronounced by repeating the exact same pattern of sound eight times? English doesn't require semantic tone, its use just makes conversing easier.