Re: Miscellaneous Derivatives of "Hear Me!"

On Tue, 2002-06-25 at 23:21, Adrian Morgan wrote:
> 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.
Yeah, I realised this when I was transcribing my speech afterwards...
/l/ leaves practically no vowel untouched (I also realised it actually
causes /i:/ and /I@/ to merge wherever it is).

> If [o] is the vowel in "ore", then this raises some new questions,
Such as?

> 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?
I really wouldn't have a clue. And your 'o-' is actually [8], I think,
isn't it?

> 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 don't ('bird' is rounded and long), but you could well be right.

> I'm also wondering if boat [b8u-t] might in fact be [b3\}t].
Well, seeing as we may well be using [3] for [@\], then I guess they
would end up being basically the same thing. Although I'm now wondering
whether that vowel *is* actually rounded as I was convinced it was, or
if it's not. I'm still convinced, though, that the 'bird' vowel is
rounded (which means [8:] would be better for it).

> 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.
I for one have no problems with it, and we've probably lost a long time
ago the people who don't care about it.

Tristan.