Not yet YAEPT [Re: Language "laws"?]

On Mon, Oct 11, 2004 at 03:24:01PM +0200, Henrik Theiling wrote:
> Yann Kiraly <yann_kiraly@...> writes:
> > ,a in saw
>
> Depends highly on dialect.  I don't dare to give answers in order not
> to start YAEPT.
Well, I'll try to avoid YAEPT, but if someone feels compelled to chime
in YAEPTishly, please indicate so in the subject line. :)

Phonemically, |saw| and other |aw| words generally have /O/.  If "cot"
and "caught" do not sound identical in your dialect, then chances are
the vowels in "saw" and "caught" are the same, and the phonetic
realization is likely to be close to [O] as well, but myriad variations
on this theme is possible, and the weirdest ones seem to be found in
Australia.  :)

If, on the other hand, your pronunciations of "cot" and "caught" are
identical, then |saw| and its ilk may still have [O] - possibly the only
words to have that vowel in your 'lect in that case, or else perhaps
joined by words with |all| - or they may have merged with "cot" and
"caught" to give something like [a], presumably the same vowel you have
in the first syllable of "father".

But I infer from the fact that you asked specifically about "saw" that
you do not pronounce the vowel the same as the one in "father", so
what you are looking for is probably [O].  In real IPA this is an "open
o" - an o with an arc missing from the left side; typographically, it's
really a c rotated 180 degrees.

-Marcos