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Re: more English orthography

From:Herman Miller <hmiller@...>
Date:Tuesday, May 16, 2000, 3:15
On Sat, 13 May 2000 04:28:42 -0400, Muke Tever <alrivera@...>
wrote:

>I still don't see how this follows. > >OK. My dialect, _phonemically_, has the vowels of: > > bot, bait, bat, bet, beet, bit, bite, but, boat, book, boy, bout, boot, >beaut, -ble, Bert > >It also has an 'o' that I think of as different though it only appears >before r or in foreign words: bore. (Phonemically doesn't conflict with >"boat" AFAICT) > >I also have the consonants of: > > bee, chew, do, though, fee, go, hi, jaw, key, low, me, no, -ing, pie, ray, >sea, she, tea, thick, vow, way, you, zee, and "zh". > >How many on this list, (with American accents/dialects) does this _not_ map >to their phoneme inventory? (I make _no_ prescription to the phonetic >values of these sounds.)
In my dialect, "bought" is distinct from "bot". Actually, I should say that "caught" [kQt] is distinct from "cot" [kAt], since I really don't know the correct pronunciation of "bot" (I've assumed that it rhymes with "cot". I suppose you'd have to ask an entomologist.) (This vowel is also unlike the vowel in "bore", although I don't know of any minimal pairs. The closest I can get to a minimal pair is "sorry" [sQri] vs. "story" [stOri].)
>Are there too many sounds? Not enough? Which ones are missing/extra?
Even with the same sounds, there are differences between dialects. Some American dialects distinguish words that I don't (merry, marry, Mary), and others make fewer distinctions (pin = pen).