how to pronounce the word fermented

Question

how to pronounce the word fermented  ,it should be  pronounce  f?r'mentid or f?r'mendid ?

Jacky Shen · Accepted Answer

BTW, I refer to the America accent

Anonymous · Answer

quynh: I think It should be pronounce fer'memtid

Enoon · Answer

American Broadcast English makes that f?r'mentid.

My accent makes it f?r'menid. I can hardly believe it myself.

Jacky Shen · Answer

I found the word in the following URL ,the phonetic is fermentid ,but the record sounds like fermendid ,So I puzzled
http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=154914381

Raindoctor · Answer

I hear 't' in that NPR podcast (like around 00:11).

VntV > VnV, when the first V is stressed (cf. twenty)
VntV > VndV, when the first V is not stressed. (cf. seventy)

In both cases, the second V is not stressed.

In that sense, both /f?'ment?d, -'menid/ are realized. Nothing dialectal. It is more of a register issue.

Jacky Shen · Answer

Hi raindoctor,
thank you ,
1 "VntV > VnV, when the first V is stressed (cf. twenty)" but there is no V in the word twenty.
2,what is the meaning for VntV > VnV or VntV > VndV?

Raindoctor · Answer

< y > is a grapheme (orthography); in speech, it is realized as a vowel. The reference vowel set in this case is HAPPY lexical set.

X > Y: speech segment X can become speech segment Y. Well, that's how to write a phonological process in a crude way. When you represent a phonological process, you need to represent the context and changes. That's what I did. nt can become nd, when the vowels before and after nt are not stressed: VntV > VndV, when both V's are not stressed.

nt can become n, when the vowel before nt is stressed and the vowel after that is not stressed. VntV > VnV, where the first V is stressed and the second one is not.

Jacky Shen · Answer

raindoctor
sorry for my late reply,thank you so much.

CalifJim · Answer

raindoctorVntV > VndV, when the first V is not stressed. (cf. seventy)

This works for "seventy", but not for "warranty" or "warranted" (the way I say them and heard them said).

I'm wondering why. Is it to do with the morphology? (seven - ty vs warrant -y) Or to do with the relative stress, the second syllable of warranty not being as unstressed as the second syllable of seventy)? Or to do with something else I'm not seeing?

At any rate, I can't think of another word besides 'seventy' with this property. Is it unique?

CJ

Raindoctor · Answer

CalifJimI'm wondering why. Is it to do with the morphology? (seven - ty vs warrant -y

CJ,

you are right on that. Yes, it has to do with syllabic boundary. The /t/ deletion does not occur if a syllabic boundary divides //n// and //t//. cf. seven-ty, coven-try, Washing~ton /w???nd?n/, in#to, etc--one hears /d/ here. warran(t)~y: /t/ gets deleted.

Usually, assimilations don't cross word boundaries (#). Sometimes, they happen. For instance, want#to > wanna. Here /t/ is deleted. This has to do with syntactic situation and/or prosodic situation.

used#to > usta
have#to > hafta
has#to > hasta
had#to > hadda
got#ta > godda

Again, these are not permitted in certain interrogatives. cf. the following.

What did he have to do? He had work to do.
What did hafta do? He hadda do work

Then, there are tempo issues. For instance, To-'ron-,to, 'mo-,to, '****-,to vs. normal fast speech versions To-'ron(t)-,o, 'mo[ d ] -'o, '****(t)-,o

Check how those who live in Toronto, ON, Canada pronounce it: trana for Toronto. Tempo forces many assimilations.

Let's look at California.

San Francisco, CA [sæ?f's?sk??] (Samf 'cisco or even sam 'cisco). And look all those hightech immigrants in the bay area pronounce it, despite being here for a couple of decades. Of course, these suckers force their kids to master spellings of various cities, etc!!

San Jose, CA[sæn?'ze?] (Santa's 'A')

Sahuarita, AZ [s?'i??] (Surrita)

San Bernardino, CA [sæmb?'din??] (Sam Ber'dino)

Peñasquitos, San Diego [p??n'ski??s] (Pensky duss)"

San Di'ego > San Day go > simply day go

I don't know about Mission Viejo, CA. They may pronounce the latter word like vayho.

how to pronounce the word fermented

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