Calm, palm etc.:
I've been thinking about the complexities of this. I am American,
raised in upstate New York, and I have some l's in some forms
of these words, but the more I thought about it, it became clear
that I tend to have it in multisyllabic forms, e.g. "calming" (as in
a "calming effect") and definitely in Palmer. In others, such as
plain, simple 'calm' and 'palm' I vary, and probably hypercorrect
when paying attention to it. The vowel is the same vowel as in
'father' i.e. not the further back vowel in 'all'. (I have the
contrast between 'cot' and 'caught'.)
I'm glad to hear that some conservative dialects in the UK have it,
so it's not just all hypercorrection in my speech.
Hal Schiffman
On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 7:00 PM, VAR-L automatic digest system
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> There are 7 messages totaling 1365 lines in this issue.
>
> Topics of the day:
>
> 1. palm, calm, etc. (5)
> 2. Calm, palm, etc.?
> 3. Using private, commercial corpora
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2011 22:18:54 -0700
> From: Rudy Troike <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: palm, calm, etc.
>
> Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2011 07:00:37 +0100
> From: Peter Trudgill <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Calm, palm, etc.?
>
> The pronunciation with /l/ is quite normal in areas of the southwest of England,
> where it is clearly a conservative feature and not a spelling pronunciation.
> John Wells writes about it in his book, I think, though I dont have it to hand.
> Rule number one: anyone with a query about English accents should first look in
> J C Wells "Accents of English"!
>
> It is true that in N America many speakers, having one fewer vowel than the rest
> of us, pronounce bomb and balm the same unless the /l/ occurs in balm, while we
> don't. But the rest of us might like to note that in the relevant
> area of SW England, words such as the name Palmer have the vowel of LOT or
> THOUGHT (Im not sure which - any native speakers out there?) and not of TRAP,
> or START etc.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Thanks to Peter for weighing in -- this is the most interesting discussion
> the list has produced. As a cot-caught distinguisher, I'm not phonemically
> impoverished in that part of vowel system, but balm=bomb for me. Balm is
> a book-word, first learned in the song "There is a Balm in Gilead". When I
> took Introduction to Phonology with H. A. Gleason [he of Introduction to
> Descriptive Linguistics, for younger members] at a Linguistic Society
> summer Institute, he told the class that British speakers had a low back
> rounded vowel in "bomb" to distinguish the pair, and mentioned that some
> Americans had a long [a:] in "balm", presumably the result of l-vocalization.
> I think this point may even be mentioned in his book. But there was no
> discussion of an actual [l] in the word.
>
> I would be surprised if the /l/ pronunciation was a conservative one in
> England (though I haven't looked at Wells), since both "calm" and "palm"
> are borrowed words, and presumably any /l/ would have long since been
> vocalized in French (Spanish still has it). In reference to "palm of the
> hand", the proof of the pudding that /l/ was long lost is that in some
> varieties of American English (perhaps primarily North Midland?), the
> word has been folk-etymologized to "pan" [paen], a recessive pronunciation
> I have heard in west-central Illinois. I would not be surprised if this
> went back to England.
>
> I grew up in South Texas amidst palm trees, and never heard an /l/ in that
> word. I still register a startle reaction when I hear a newscaster use
> /l/ in "calm", and just put it down to a spelling pronunciation. My 1st-
> grade teacher as it happens was Miss Palmer /palm@r/, with a definite [l],
> and the vowel of "father".
>
> Matt Gordon's results are interesting, and undoubtedly in part reflect the
> insecurity that Americans, reared on Webster's Blue-backed Speller in the
> 19th century -- enshrined in the National Spelling Bee -- have about their
> language. Whenever my students do a usage survey, respondents get very
> uptight and demand to know what the "right" answer is, refusing to accept
> the assurance that any response is O.K. (a sad commentary on the lack of
> results from the efforts of linguists for over 50 years to change public
> understanding of language). Spelling pronunciations can be inculcated
> very early, as can prescriptive distinctions like "route:rout", and be
> beyond conscious recall as to their inspiration. (A lot of Americans who
> lived on Route /aw/ 66 used to enjoy the weekly TV program Route /uw/ 66.)
>
> Rudy Troike
> University of Arizona
>
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> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2011 08:47:39 +0300
> From: Ari Sherris <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Calm, palm, etc.?
>
> While possibly a humorous note to lighten up Mark's comment--which was spot
> on from an empirical paradigm after a kind--perhaps a future turn in this
> field might be similar to what Claire Kramsch (2009)has developed for SLA, a
> qualitative study of subjectivity, intersubjectivity, and subject position
> from data on multilingual speakers, including self-studies. Surely the
> subjective dimensions of this field do not only intrigue us--if at
> all--because of the political interface among the players--bigotry, bias,
> and sound, correct?
>
> Arieh (Ari) Sherris, PhD
> King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
> Building 18, Room 3238
> Thuwal, Saudi Arabia
>
> My Google pages: https://sites.google.com/site/arisherris/
>
> Website: http://www.kaust.edu.sa
>
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 11:54 PM, Benjamin Torbert <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
>
>>
>> On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 3:48 PM, David Bowie <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>> What's the rate for those who have field recordings of themselves?
>>>
>>
>>
>> I've often thought a sociolinguistic study of me would be fascinating.
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> The Variationist List - discussion of everything related to variationist
>> sociolinguistics.
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>
>
>
> --
>
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> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2011 08:21:55 +0100
> From: Peter Trudgill <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: palm, calm, etc.
>
>>When I
>>took Introduction to Phonology with H. A. Gleason [he of Introduction to
>>Descriptive Linguistics, for younger members] at a Linguistic Society
>>summer Institute, he told the class that British speakers had a low back
>>rounded vowel in "bomb" to distinguish the pair,
>
> Thanks, Rudy! Yes, and not just British speakers - all English
> speakers outside N America (Aus, NZ, S Africa etc, though the
> Caribbean is complicated), and including, as you say, some Americans
> too. A nice test, without bothering with exotic (for some) words like
> "balm", is whether speakers rhyme "bother" and "father" or not.
>
> I'm always willing to believe in spelling pronunciations having a
> bigger role in USEng than elsewhere e.g. falcon pronounced with the
> TRAP vowel - no surprise when you consider the fact that a majority
> of Americans descend from nonnative speakers. And I know that at
> least some American singing teachers actually instruct choirs to
> insert an /l/ in calm, balm, when singing.
>
>>I would be surprised if the /l/ pronunciation was a conservative one in
>>England (though I haven't looked at Wells), since both "calm" and "palm"
>>are borrowed words, and presumably any /l/ would have long since been
>>vocalized in French (Spanish still has it).
>
> Actually not. Yes, palm was borrowed from French, but nearly 1,000
> years ago ("palmer" is in Chaucer, and thats getting on for 600
> years) when (at least Norman) French still had the /l/. Thats why its
> there in the English (but not the French!) spelling.
>
> Our very distinguished senior colleague Frank (F.R.) Palmer grew up
> in Gloucestershire where before WWII his surname was normally
> pronounced "Poll-mer", with the first syllable as in doll or Paul -
> he is currently thinking about which, on our behalf! You can see that
> the change of /a/ to /o/ before /l/, as also in all, salt, took place
> there because the /l/ had not been lost cf. walk etc where the vowel
> change preceded the loss of /l/. [In Scotland and NE England not so -
> hence /wa:k/.]
>
> How 'dark' the /l/ is seems to me not to be very important - the
> interesting question is: is there an /l/ there or not; and if so, is
> it a recent spelling pronunciation, or a conservative feature with
> /l/ being preserved? Especially interesting will be if we can show
> American palm with an /l/ descends directly from the arrival of this
> conservative pronunciation in the US from England or, perhaps,
> Ireland.
>
> Peter
>
>
>
> --
> __________________________________________
>
> Peter Trudgill FBA
> Prof. of Sociolinguistics, Agder Univ., N
> Adjunct Prof., RCLT, La Trobe Univ., AU
> Prof. Emeritus of Eng. Linguistics, Fribourg Univ, CH
> Hon. Prof. of Sociolinguistics, UEA, Norwich, UK
>
> Forthcoming book: Sociolinguistic typology: social determinants of
> linguistic structure and complexity. OUP Oct/Nov 2011.
> __________________________________________
>
> ########################################################################
>
> The Variationist List - discussion of everything related to variationist sociolinguistics.
>
> To send messages to the VAR-L list (subscribers only), write to:
> [log in to unmask]
>
> To unsubscribe from the VAR-L list, click the following link:
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2011 09:37:10 +0100
> From: Peter Trudgill <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: palm, calm, etc.
>
> PS What I wrote about modern French is rather simplified, as you will
> have noticed. "Palm (of the hand)" is indeed paume in Mod Fr, but
> calm is calme. And salmon is saumon - I believe there are Americans
> who pronounce the <l> in salmon? I take it this is also a spelling
> pronunciation. Elsewhere it rhymes with "gammon", of course.
>
> On spelling pronunciations - see John Wells' blog (highly recommended
> for frequent reading!) at:
>
> http://phonetic-blog.blogspot.com/2010/11/non-spelling-pronunciation.html
>
> --
> __________________________________________
>
> Peter Trudgill FBA
> Prof. of Sociolinguistics, Agder Univ., N
> Adjunct Prof., RCLT, La Trobe Univ., AU
> Prof. Emeritus of Eng. Linguistics, Fribourg Univ, CH
> Hon. Prof. of Sociolinguistics, UEA, Norwich, UK
>
> Forthcoming book: Sociolinguistic typology: social determinants of
> linguistic structure and complexity. OUP Oct/Nov 2011.
> __________________________________________
>
> ########################################################################
>
> The Variationist List - discussion of everything related to variationist sociolinguistics.
>
> To send messages to the VAR-L list (subscribers only), write to:
> [log in to unmask]
>
> To unsubscribe from the VAR-L list, click the following link:
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2011 12:48:37 +0100
> From: Peter Trudgill <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: palm, calm, etc.
>
> Frank Palmer confirms that both the LOT vowel and the THOUGHT vowel
> occurred in Palmer before the /l/, but that the LOT version was
> preferred, at least in his family, and was the only available
> pronunciation in calm, palm.
> --
> __________________________________________
>
> Peter Trudgill FBA
> Prof. of Sociolinguistics, Agder Univ., N
> Adjunct Prof., RCLT, La Trobe Univ., AU
> Prof. Emeritus of Eng. Linguistics, Fribourg Univ, CH
> Hon. Prof. of Sociolinguistics, UEA, Norwich, UK
>
> Forthcoming book: Sociolinguistic typology: social determinants of
> linguistic structure and complexity. OUP Oct/Nov 2011.
> __________________________________________
>
> ########################################################################
>
> The Variationist List - discussion of everything related to variationist sociolinguistics.
>
> To send messages to the VAR-L list (subscribers only), write to:
> [log in to unmask]
>
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>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2011 13:18:07 +0000
> From: "Patrick, Peter L" <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Using private, commercial corpora
>
> Hi Suzanne, and list,
> While I don't have experience w/data collected by a commercial firm, I have supervised several PhDs at Essex which involved collecting dr/patient data in NHS (National
> Health Service) venues (practically about to be privatised, following the salutary ex. of US healthcare, but that is another story! Tory Story 2, you might call it...)
> I'm also Dept Ethics Officer and the university-wide process we use asks a preliminary Q about whether external ethics approval has been obtained. If the answer is "yes",
> the university normally does not require further internal review. This is probably aimed at processes like the NHs, which in my students' case took 6-8 months, hundreds of pages
> of paperwork, insurance clearance, presentations to committees of doctors, etc - clearly once a project has made it thru that, the IRB review is redundant. Standard expectations
> include destruction of recordings by a certain date, typically end of PhD.
> I doubt you could collect data in the UK from NHS centres, even if from a private firm, w/o going it thru that, so I have not seen the Q come up before. Of course, there is also
> private healthcare...
>
> best,
> -peter-
>
> Peter L. Patrick E: [log in to unmask]
> Dept. of Language & Linguistics Ph: 1206 87.2088
> Office: 4.328
> W: http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~patrickp
>
> From: Variationist List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Suzanne Evans Wagner
> Sent: 12 April 2011 15:12
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Using private, commercial corpora
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> One of my students plans to use a corpus (audio and transcripts) of doctor-patient conversations that were recorded by a private company. We have signed the company's in-house legal agreement so that we could obtain initial access to this corpus. The data look great, so the student would like to use them as the basis for long-term work. However, there's always the possibility that the company might choose to withdraw access down the road, and this is a concern.
>
> Does anyone have experience of managing these kinds of relationships? What additional legal documentation did you draw up, if any? How was your local IRB involved?
>
> Thanks,
> Suzanne
>
>
>
> Dr. Suzanne Evans Wagner
> Assistant Professor of Linguistics
> Department of Linguistics and Languages
> Michigan State University
> East Lansing, MI 48824
>
>
> Tel: +1 (517) 355-9739
> http://www.msu.edu/~wagnersu<http://www.msu.edu/%7Ewagnersu>
> http://splab.lin.msu.edu/fos
> ________________________________
>
> The Variationist List - discussion of everything related to variationist sociolinguistics.
>
> To send messages to the VAR-L list (subscribers only), write to:
> [log in to unmask]
>
> To unsubscribe from the VAR-L list, click the following link:
> http://jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=VAR-L&A=1
>
> ########################################################################
>
> The Variationist List - discussion of everything related to variationist sociolinguistics.
>
> To send messages to the VAR-L list (subscribers only), write to:
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>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2011 13:41:11 +0000
> From: "Patrick, Peter L" <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: palm, calm, etc.
>
> I'm with Rudy - I have the cot/caught distinction but balm=bomb, low-back but no L.
> (I also rhyme bother and father, but they are not particularly back.) Dialect provenance:
> Father from Michigan, mother from N Georgia, socialised NYC aged 0-5 - but thereafter
> lived amongst the palm trees for a decade, with nary an L intruding, and never noticed
> any from the Jamaican speakers around me...
> Yes, I sigh nostalgically, this is beginning to feel a bit like ADS-L, off of which I signed
> years ago...
> -p-
>
> Peter L. Patrick E: [log in to unmask]
> Dept. of Language & Linguistics Ph: 1206 87.2088
> Office: 4.328
> W: http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~patrickp
>
> From: Variationist List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Peter Trudgill
> Sent: 13 April 2011 08:22
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: palm, calm, etc.
>
> When I
> took Introduction to Phonology with H. A. Gleason [he of Introduction to
> Descriptive Linguistics, for younger members] at a Linguistic Society
> summer Institute, he told the class that British speakers had a low back
> rounded vowel in "bomb" to distinguish the pair,
>
> Thanks, Rudy! Yes, and not just British speakers - all English speakers outside N America (Aus, NZ, S Africa etc, though the Caribbean is complicated), and including, as you say, some Americans too. A nice test, without bothering with exotic (for some) words like "balm", is whether speakers rhyme "bother" and "father" or not.
>
> I'm always willing to believe in spelling pronunciations having a bigger role in USEng than elsewhere e.g. falcon pronounced with the TRAP vowel - no surprise when you consider the fact that a majority of Americans descend from nonnative speakers. And I know that at least some American singing teachers actually instruct choirs to insert an /l/ in calm, balm, when singing.
>
> I would be surprised if the /l/ pronunciation was a conservative one in
> England (though I haven't looked at Wells), since both "calm" and "palm"
> are borrowed words, and presumably any /l/ would have long since been
> vocalized in French (Spanish still has it).
>
> Actually not. Yes, palm was borrowed from French, but nearly 1,000 years ago ("palmer" is in Chaucer, and thats getting on for 600 years) when (at least Norman) French still had the /l/. Thats why its there in the English (but not the French!) spelling.
>
> Our very distinguished senior colleague Frank (F.R.) Palmer grew up in Gloucestershire where before WWII his surname was normally pronounced "Poll-mer", with the first syllable as in doll or Paul - he is currently thinking about which, on our behalf! You can see that the change of /a/ to /o/ before /l/, as also in all, salt, took place there because the /l/ had not been lost cf. walk etc where the vowel change preceded the loss of /l/. [In Scotland and NE England not so - hence /wa:k/.]
>
> How 'dark' the /l/ is seems to me not to be very important - the interesting question is: is there an /l/ there or not; and if so, is it a recent spelling pronunciation, or a conservative feature with /l/ being preserved? Especially interesting will be if we can show American palm with an /l/ descends directly from the arrival of this conservative pronunciation in the US from England or, perhaps, Ireland.
>
> Peter
>
>
>
> --
> __________________________________________
>
> Peter Trudgill FBA
> Prof. of Sociolinguistics, Agder Univ., N
> Adjunct Prof., RCLT, La Trobe Univ., AU
> Prof. Emeritus of Eng. Linguistics, Fribourg Univ, CH
> Hon. Prof. of Sociolinguistics, UEA, Norwich, UK
>
> Forthcoming book: Sociolinguistic typology: social determinants of linguistic structure and complexity. OUP Oct/Nov 2011.
> __________________________________________
>
> ________________________________
>
> The Variationist List - discussion of everything related to variationist sociolinguistics.
>
> To send messages to the VAR-L list (subscribers only), write to:
> [log in to unmask]
>
> To unsubscribe from the VAR-L list, click the following link:
> http://jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=VAR-L&A=1
>
> ########################################################################
>
> The Variationist List - discussion of everything related to variationist sociolinguistics.
>
> To send messages to the VAR-L list (subscribers only), write to:
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> ------------------------------
>
> End of VAR-L Digest - 12 Apr 2011 to 13 Apr 2011 (#2011-35)
> ***********************************************************
>
--
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
Harold F. Schiffman
Professor Emeritus of
Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305
Phone: (215) 898-7475
Fax: (215) 573-2138
Email: [log in to unmask]
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/
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