Re: Miscellaneous Derivatives of "Hear Me!"

Tristan McLeay wrote, quoting myself:

> > I have no idea how to transcribe the vowel in "all", and can't put a
> > name to how it differs from [u] (I can hear the difference easily, I
> > just can't tell how my mouth moves between them). Hints appreciated.
>
> As Christophe and the website you've quoted have suggested, /o:/ is
> probably the best vowel, even though /O:/ is the standard.
The website does not distinguish between the vowels in "all" and "ore".
In the former, it is assimilated with the 'l' and noticeably distinct.
I still don't know how to transcribe it.

If [o] is the vowel in "ore", then this raises some new questions,
although it *does* make sense when I look at the diagram of IPA
vowels so I'm willing to believe it.

I happen to know that a general distinction between Scottish English and
Irish English is in the quality of the /o/ vowel as in "no". I'm
wondering how this distinction is transcribed in narrow transcription:
perhaps [o] for Scottish (they pronounce "no" like we would "gnaw") and
[o-] for Irish?

The website shows the vowel in "her" as being closer to [@\] than to
[3], which makes sense to me as I typically think of schwa as lying
between "bird" and "bud". I wonder if I could actually hear the
difference between [3] and [@\].

I'm also wondering if boat [b8u-t] might in fact be [b3\}t].

The main reason I'm asking all these nosy and pedantic questions is
that, as I've said, I would like to write a web page about it, and
also that I'm interested). When I was a regular on this list a lot of
people seemed to get tired of my endless pestering, but I have done a
certain amount of research elsewhere (e.g. local library, speaking to
linguistics lecturers, etc - keep in mind that phonetics/conlanging is
simply one of many of my interests/passtimes, rather han a primary one
as for most people on the list) and the truth is I *do* feel I am
making progress, i.e. the IPA is slowly but surely making more sense to
me.

Adrian.

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