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From: Christian Weisgerber <naddy@mips.inka.de>
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Galveston
Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2025 16:09:34 -0000 (UTC)
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On 2025-03-22, Ruud Harmsen <rh@rudhar.com> wrote:

> Yes, I understand that’s the explanation. But I still think it’s a
> weird rhyme, because of the stress difference, and because in my view
> (which is not mainstream and is not scientifically based, I know),
> they are not the same phoneme.

But many speakers do perceive them as the same phoneme.  In fact,
the realization in the song is a test for this:  What happens to
unstressed schwa when the speaker is forced to stress the vowel,
e.g. contrastive stress or, as in the song, secondary stress for
rhythmic reasons?  It becomes the STRUT vowel.

Some American analyses use the same symbol for both stressed STRUT
and the unstressed schwa, e.g. Merriam-Webster.com.

J.C. Wells, in his _Longman Pronunciation Dictionary_ (3rd ed., 2008),
mentions "[upside down v] and [schwa] not distinguished in quality,
both being like RP [schwa]" in a list of "widespread but local
pronunciation characteristics from various parts of the British
Isles".

> I also consider the history of the language and the phonemes. I know
> very well that according to any phonemic theory, and PTD, I shouldn’t,
> but I do it anyway. The BUG vowel has an unrounded [o] realisation in
> Northern England, which shwa could never have. <but> (when stressed)
> and <butt> and <put>, <look> and <luck> have the same vowel there. The
> origin and sound of shwa in English, as in Galveston, is totally
> different and unconnected.

The sh-sound in "fish" (from Germanic */sk/) and the one in "nation"
(from /sj/) have different origins and developed a millennium apart,
but they are the same phoneme.

You are talking about the so-called FOOT/STRUT split.  In Southern
England English, Middle English short u shifted to the STRUT vowel.
However, this shift was incomplete, so words now have one or the
other, e.g. bush vs. butter.  Some variants of English, notably in
Northern England, never participated in that shift and thus have
the same vowel in FOOT and STRUT.  The exact quality of the vowel
varies.

The FOOT/STRUT split is universal in American/Canadian English.

The final schwa in Galveston is just a generic reduced vowel in
unstressed position.  From Wikipedia it seems the name started out
as Gálvez-Town, which then underwent the -town > -ton reduction
that is ubiquitous in English place names.

This is not a case where the etymology provides any additional
insights.

> This also reminds me of a discussion we had years ago, about Memphis
> sounding like Memphus, in a song sung by Cher. Unthinkable in
> South-Brit. The THIS and THUS vowels are always distinct there. 

Many AmE speakers do not distinguish unstressed schwa and an
unstressed KIT vowel.  Actual realization can be in free variation
or positional allophony.  In fact, this concerns the second syllable
of "Galveston".  Merriam-Webster.com has replaced unstressed KIT
with the schwa throughout much of the dictionary.

-- 
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber                          naddy@mips.inka.de