OT: Definitely Not YAEPT: English phoneme inventory?
From: | Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> |
Date: | Wednesday, July 16, 2003, 13:21 |
Technically, yes, this concerns English pronunciation. But I'm not
interested at this time in idiodialectic variation. I'm just looking
for a good list of English phonemes, regardless of how they're actually
realized in 'lect X.
A dictionary pronunciation guide seemed like a good place to start,
so I grabbed the one from m-w.com. But I'd be interested to hear
comments from you fine folks.
Here's the M-W guide:
M-W X-SAMPA
\&\ as a and u in abut /V/ or /@/
\a\ as a in ash /{/
\A\ as a in ace /e/
\ä\ as o in mop /A/
\au\ as ou in out /aU/
\ch\ as ch in chin /t_S/
\e\ as e in bet /E/
\E\ as ea in easy /i/
\g\ as g in go /g/
\i\ as i in hit /I/
\I\ as i in ice /aj/
\j\ as j in job /d_Z/
\[ng]\ as ng in sing /N/
\O\ as o in go /o/
\o\ as aw in law /O/
\oi\ as oy in boy /oj/
\th\ as th in thin /T/
\<ul>th</ul>\ as th in the /D/
\ü\ as oo in loot /u/
\u\ as oo in foot /U/
\y\ as y in yet /j/
\zh\ as si in vision /Z/
It also includes these symbols:
\<sup>&</sup>\ as e in kitten
\&r\as ur/er in further
Both of the above are really just examples of syllabicizing the
following consonant, though, so I don't consider them phonemes.
There are, of course, many other phones in English; they were left out of the
guide because the dictionary uses standard English orthography which is in
these cases unambiguous. Here they are, as found in actual
dictionary entries:
\b\ /b/
\d\ /d/
\f\ /f/
\h\ /h/
\k\ /k/
\l\ /l/
\m\ /m/
\n\ /n/
\p\ /p/
\r\ /r\/
\s\ /s/
\sh\ /S/
\t\ /t/
\v\ /v/
\w\ /w/
\hw\ /W/
\z\ /z/
So by my count that's 39 phonemes.
Additions, deletions, modifications? Again, I'm interested
in identity, not phonetics; for instance, the 'o' in 'mop' is
a separate phoneme from the one in 'mope' regardless of how you
personally make the distinction, and my choice of /O/ and /o/ for
their respective X-SAMPA representations is not intended to reflect
anyone's actual pronunciation (not even mine, since my long o definitely
has an off-glide). In general, wherever appropriate distinct
qualitative symbols were available, I used them in lieu of using
distinctions of length (e.g. /e/ vs /e:/) or diphthongalization
(e.g. /e/ vs /ej/).
-Mark
Replies