Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Starry-marry split

 This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page, if it exists; or after the end of this archived section. The result of the debate was delete. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 03:47, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Starry-marry split
Delete as neologism. (Google gets no hits at all for this or for "marry-starry split".) Nor is it a genuine phonemic split, since it is not a question of a single phoneme splitting into two phonemes over time. It's just different diachronic behavior of a vowel before a morpheme boundary (star-ry) compared to morpheme-internally (marry). Not a notable linguistic phenomenon. Angr/undefined 22:12, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete - Unverifiable, not notable, not encyclopedic, neologism, it's a veritable smorgasbord of reasons to delete. --FCYTravis 22:24, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep - The difference between the vowels in starry and marry is phonemic, otherwise they would rhyme. Also, tarry and tarry  form a minimal pair, so the difference is phonemic, because a minimal pair is formed. Also, the distinction between  and  is not even morphemically predictable, compare marry  and sari . Sari has only one morpheme. Steve, Jun 14, 2005 (actually 64.12.117.14 22:32, 2005 Jun 14 according to edit history. Uncle G 23:51, 2005 Jun 14 (UTC))
 * As I have said already, in Votes for deletion/Technology-deck split: Prove it. Cite your sources. Tell us where you learned all of the above from. There's a lot of unsourced material that is added to these "X English" articles, that is either wrong or one person's made-up hypothesis (which we don't accept here) rather than knowledge in the field of linguistics.  Our weapon against such material is verifiability, which we've had to wield repeatedly.  Angr did a lot of good work in phonemic differentiation weeding out unverifiable content. So far you are two for two in failing to cite your sources, even after being explicitly asked for them. Uncle G 23:51, 2005 Jun 14 (UTC)
 * I heard about it at this article http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/18cengvs.html

Quote-''These developments (historical linguistic sound changes) had the effect that many related words would then have had different pronunciations, depending on whether or not the word contained a suffix beginning with a vowel. Thus related words such as "star" and "starry" would have had different stressed vowels ("star" would have the new lengthened vowel, while "starry" would have the original short vowel). To avoid such disparities of pronunciation between morphologically-related forms, (i.e. pairs of obviously related words), there occurred a process of analogical replacement (not a regular sound change), by which forms with intervocalic [r] (such as "starry") came to have the same pre-[r] long vowel as the forms with non-intervocalic [r] (such as "star"). (It was impossible for the analogy process to work in the opposite direction, since shortening the long vowel in the form with non-intervocalic [r] would have violated the phonological requirement that no non-schwa short-vowel could occur before word-final [r], or before [r] followed by a consonant.) This analogical replacement process is the reason why in modern standard English dialects the word "starry" now has a vowel which is similar to that of the word "star", but which is different from the vowel of the word "marry". (The original short vowel in "marry" remained unaffected by analogy because in the case of that word there was no morphologically-related form in which the "a" vowel wasn't intervocalic.)'' 64.12.117.14, 23:51, 2005 Jun 14 (UTC)


 * Merge with phonemic differentiation like the others. Kappa 22:56, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * If sources are cited, Merge, as the others. If no sources are cited, as is currently the case, Delete for being unverifiable. Uncle G 23:51, 2005 Jun 14 (UTC)
 * Comment if it's to be merged anywhere, merge it to History of the English language. It is not a phonemic split in the sense used at Phonemic differentiation and so it has no business there. --Angr/undefined 06:34, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Delete original research. JamesBurns 06:22, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, neolog. Radiant_ &gt;|&lt; 09:25, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge with phonemic differentiation. 205.188.117.74 13:51, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, original research/neologism. The phonemic split might well be accurately described, but the term for it is a neologism unless evidence to the contrary (WP:CITE) is provided. &mdash; mark &#9998; 10:26, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * ''The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be placed on a related article talk page, if one exists; in an undeletion request, if it does not; or below this section.