Like I said yesterday, the whole stress-timed-vs.-syllable-timed business is "a gigantic tangled intellectual thicket that’s easy to get into and hard to get out of". And one of the comments on my post asked a question that tempts me in further:
So then there’s a psychological perception of syllable-timed language that is not visible in the objective data?
Yes and no.
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Yesterday afternoon, I got this note from John Cowan, that indefatigable correspondent:
You linked to the piece on Romney vs. Giuliani speaking styles today,
so I checked back to see if you ever added my comment on it, but I
think I probably sent it during the period when my mail to you was being mysteriously blackholed. So here it is again.
In fact, I recall getting John's comments the first time. But they brought up a problematic point that deserves a post of its own — the vexed question of "stress-timed" vs. "syllable-timed" languages — and so I put John's note on my to-blog list, where it languished until now. I still don't have time for a proper answer, but I'll respond briefly (hah!) under the rubric of fact-checking.
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Last week, I discussed some of the things that Rev. Jeremiah Wright had to say at the National Press Club about race, language, and the brain ("Wright on language and linguistics", 4/29/2008). But I didn't discuss the passage that many journalists identified as the rhetorical and emotional core of his outburst. (Click the link to hear the audio.)
This is the transcript:
In our community, we have something called playing the dozens.
If you think I'm going to let you talk about my momma,
and her religious tradition, and my daddy, and his religious tradition, and my grandpa,
you got another think coming.
Or is it?
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