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Grammar help!

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
in General Chat
Just quickly:
Would I write "an unique" or "a unique"? Both sound odd.
Is it the same as in "an historian" or just normal?

ETA Microsoft Word spellchecker is telling me it's 'a' but it's wrong so often that I don't quite believe it!

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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I would say a.

    What's the rest of the sentence?
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I believe it's "a unique"
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Glittery wrote: »
    I would say a.

    What's the rest of the sentence?
    " Each vowel sound has a unique formant pattern."

    xsazx - it's definitely "an historian", they just tell you about the following consonant thing in primary school to help you out a bit, it's actually more complicated. It's the sound rather than the spelling that matters, if you say it, yoo-neek it's a consonant.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Knee High Stripy Socks wrote: »
    " Each vowel sound has a unique formant pattern."
    A then I'd say.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Cool beans, thanks!

    You know when you look at something for so long that it doesn't make any sense at all? Yeah, it's like that!
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Oh no, not orthographic vowels or whatever the hell they're called. I think it the case of a word like "unique" it is technically correct to use "an" but both are acceptable these days. Of course, I could be totally wrong :razz:
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    This degree has messed me up! All day we are encouraged to question the boundaries between vowels and consonants and discard the orthography and so the whole thing becomes blurred and I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO WRITE anymore. Which is a pain because it's quite necessary in a linguistics degree.

    Also, 500 words? What is WITH that? I need far more! :razz:
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I think it does go on the sound. Historian has a vowelly sound like 'ist' so is an, unique has a consantanty sound like 'yoo', so it's 'a'. Basically, I'm just repeating what KHSS said.

    A unique occurence. - sounds so right.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    'A unique' according to Strunk & White.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Editor Dom says both are probably correct but we'd always use 'a unique'
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    Indrid ColdIndrid Cold Posts: 16,688 Skive's The Limit
    I always go based on how it's pronounced. So, "a unique" and "an historian".
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Thank you both :)

    Assessment is now done, woohoo. Time for cake :D :birthday:
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    There's a few anomalies like that.

    "A European" is another one.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    An historian sounds odd.
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    Indrid ColdIndrid Cold Posts: 16,688 Skive's The Limit
    MoonArcanum wrote: »
    An historian sounds odd.
    Maybe it depends on how silent the "h" is... I've heard it both ways.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The 'a/an' rule works by reference to the oral realisation of the word, rather than it's orthographic representation.

    <a> goes before consonants, <an> goes before vowels.

    In the case of 'unique', although it begins orthgraphically with a <u>, phonetically it begins with a /j/, which isn't a vowel, it's a voiced palatal approximant (I know you know what this means KHSS :).

    It's the same with 'historian'. If it's realised with a voiced glottal fricative /h/, then normally it would be with <a> (cause it's before a consonant). But if it's h-deleted (like in London accents), then <historian> would begin with a vowel, and the article would be <an>.

    Oh, and formants? Guessing you're doing acoustic phonetics right now? Mmm, so much fun! :D
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    :yes:
    I love being able to understand everything you just said there.

    I was really struggling with acoustic phonetics until I read a chapter by Ladefoged and now everything is clear and lovely. The course we're doing is Phonological Variation and Change, and we've just been given our big projects to do. I think I am going to look at t-glottaling in a Newcastle dialect, and comparing style or gender. The best part is that we don't have to collect our own data, as we are using the EViE corpus.

    I have ear training tomorrow, a whole hour of making noises. GREAT fun :D
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    MoonArcanum wrote: »
    An historian sounds odd.

    More than odd... just sounds completly wrong. Must depends how it's pronounced. :confused:

    I read 'unique' as 'antique' several times in confusion... I must be really tired :rolleyes:
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    KHSS: Yeah, it's good being able to type it and know you get what I'm talking about. Few people outside of linguistics would know what a 'voiced palatal approximant' is!!

    Your topic sounds really interesting. I'm trying to think who's worked on Newcastle English. Paul Foulkes has written an article on t-glottaling in Newcastle. You can get it http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~pf11/ICPhS99-glottals.pdf

    Gender and style are intimately related. If you want to go down that route you definitely need to read Penny Eckert's work, esp. her stuff with Sally McConnell-Ginet (it's called 'Think Practically and Look Locally: Gender as a Practice-based Practice') If your uni is a member of JSTOR (which it should be through ATHENS), you can get it online http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0084-6570(1992)2%3A21%3C461%3ATPALLL%3E2.0.CO%3B2-U

    What's the EViE corpus?
    If you need anything else, give us a bell :)
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I would say "an unique" for the same reasons as The King of Glasgow stated. It's like "an umbrella". Isn't it? I think...
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Well, 'an umbrella' isn't like 'an unique' because 'umbrella' starts with a proper vowel. 'unique' looks like it starts with a vowel, but it actually starts with a oral consonant, so it take 'a' as its article. So technicially, it should be 'a unique' (consonant) and 'an umbrella' (vowel).
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Paul Foulkes was supposed to be lecturing this module but he is on research leave, Ros Temple is doing it instead. All the material was prepared by him though. We're only to do one variable, so it will be either gender or style. I don't want to do by region because I'm lazy. :p

    The EViE corpus is "International Variation in English" Clicky

    And thanks!
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