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Re: I *almost* understand the IPA!

From:Adrian Morgan <morg0072@...>
Date:Thursday, June 27, 2002, 1:01
Corrections:

 - Replace [E] with [e] throughout. The reason I used [E] was that I
   hadn't figured out how to transcribe the difference between [e] and
   [e_j], and wanted to leave that area well alone until I understood
   it. The vowels [e_j] and [o_w] do not occur in Australian speech,
   but they are common when singing, as allophones of [{I] and [3\}]
   respectively.

 - Add a normalisation rule explaining that [8] is lower than otherwise
   in [85] (that is, the "er" in "world"/"girl" is higher than in
   "murder".

 - Add a normalisation rule noting that the second vowel in a
   diphthong transcription indicates its direction only and not
   necessarily the actual target reached.

I am very happy that the IPA has finally clicked for me. My biggest
obstacle has always been that people use the same symbol for quite a
wide range of sounds (e.g. [o] for either [o] or [o_w]), making it
practically impossible to learn which symbol really represents which
sound. It was looking at the diagram of standard Australian vowels
that made it clear to me.

Adrian.

Reply

John Cowan <jcowan@...>