Re: OT: Definitely Not YAEPT: English phoneme inventory?

 --- "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...> wrote:
> I'm looking for the ones that are phonemically
> distinct in *some*
> dialect.  I don't distinguish /O/ and /A/ either -
> [O] doesn't
> appear at all in my speech unless I'm intentionally
> imitating another
> dialect or speaking another language.  But I
> recognize that they're
> distinct English phonemes because in some dialects
> they're distinct.
So you want the maximal set of all English phonemes?

Add:
(RP*=my understanding of GA)
/E@/=/Er/
/I@/=/Ir/
/U@/=/Ur/
/O@/=/Or/
/3/=/r\=/ (in not-unstressed syllables)

*Current RP might have lost some these, but not all
dialects have, so assume I'm talking about others in
terms of RP.

/O:/=vowel in 'gone' in my dialect, it has no friends
but does have near-minila pairs ('corn' and 'con').
Contrasts with /o:/ vowel in 'lawn', 'corn' and /O/
vowel in 'con'.

/&:/=vowel in 'can' (n. and primary v.) contrasts with
/&/=vowel in 'can' (aux. v.). Some American dialects
have a similar contrast, but they aren't one to one
between Australian, so a third phoneme may need to be
introduced to account for that (there are
similarities---the short** vowel is used in both in
ablaut (swam), but my understanding is it's more
regular in the AmE dialects that have it and happens
before some sounds there that it doesn't happen before
here, and vice versa, and the phonetic realisation
differs, being pure length here but apparently
involving a height difference there). Can also be
heard for /&u/=/au/ before /r/ in e.g. dowrie(sp).

**By which I mean the vowel used before unvoiced
consonants, which is short in my dialect.

Perhaps /Vi/ (and /Vu/?) in dialects with Canadian
rising.

Depending on what you're after,*** you might count /J/
as a phoneme in word like 'new' and 'onion' IMD

***It's more consistent: /tj/ > /tS/ but /nj/ > [J],
/nj/. (The King of Constistency would probably demand
either /cC/ or /n+postalveolar diacritic/ because they
have the same POA IMD.)

--
Tristan.

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