Assignment 2: Phonetics and Phonology How My Word Sounds

Assignment 2: Phonetics and Phonology How My Word Sounds

Murder

| mur-der | 'mɜrdər  \ˈmər-dər\ - Mer = To Die

1. Can your word be pronounced in more than one way?

The pronunciation key available in Assignment #1 seem to show that there are different phonetic spellings of the word murder, but it seems that the word is pronounced the same.  The main difference would come from the persons accent.

2. How closely does the pronunciation provided for the word in the dictionaries you consulted for Assignment #1 match your phonetic transcription of it?

Only one of the dictionaries I consulted in Assignment 1 provided a pronunciation key for the word murder, and their pronunciation key did matched how I would pronounc the word murder.  Almost all references have the same definitions.


3. If there are any differences, how do you account for them?
 The differences may be related to how a person is using this in a sentence and from where a person was raised and the dialect used.

4. Variant Spellings in the OED.

 murderer
 murderous
 murdered
 murdering


5. Are their different pronunciations of my word in its early use in the English based on variant spellings?  Why or why not?

Maybe, the Old English version spells it a little differently, murdre but it has evolved into the modern day version of murder