Re: Blah blah blah natlangs

Justin Mansfield wrote, quoting myself:

> > Reference points on the [e]->[E]->[&]->[a] continuum can be hard to
> > pin down, and I don't think my dialect has [E] so I have difficulty
> > distinguishing it.
>
>     My idiolect definitely has [j{] (or [j&] depending on your favored
> transcription system), but the actual phonetic realization might be
> something else, just because speakers of other dialects usually insist
> that my /{/ is not [{]. If this is so, I don't know what exactly it is.
> It's definitely not a diphthong, however, even in "yeah."
As far as I can tell, my [e], [&], [a] are equispaced. I understand [E] to
be halfway between [e] and [&], and the British RP of "Dad" (etc) has a
vowel halfway between [&] and [a]. Thus a three- or five- way breakdown of
the [e]->[a] continuum makes sense to me, but a four-way one I don't quite
grasp.

Adrian.

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