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Re: More Ere:tas: The fable of the North Wind and the Sun

From:Andreas Johansson <and_yo@...>
Date:Thursday, November 1, 2001, 7:04
Christian Thalmann wrote:
>Keith Gaughan wrote: > > > a /9/ = 'a' in sad > >'A' in sad would be /{/ in X-SAMPA, which I find an exceptionally ugly >character. Some people (including me) swap that symbol with /&/, which >X-SAMPA uses for the much less common rounded /a/ sound. > >So your a would be either /{/ or /&/. > > > > o /u:/ = 'o' in do > > ö /o:/ = 'o' in cold > >I would swap those two. /& @ o/ are somewhat laxer vowels which /e: i: >u:/ are tenser ones. > >As for the missing /a/ sound: I agree with Christophe that its lack is >indeed very puzzling. It seems to be the most basic sound a human can >produce (besides /@/), the first one a child can articulate (think >"mama") and the most natural one to shout, seeing as it's used in >involunatry utterings such as screams of pain or shock. > >Then again, the world's languages realize their /a/s very differingly. >English has [A], Italian [a], and Swiss German both [A] and a very open >[a], while Arabic /a/ sounds nearly like [&] afaik. > >So in Keith's lang, [&] would be the realization of the obligate /a/ >phoneme.
Speaking of 'a's, is there any (real-world) language that have a phonemic contrast between [A] and [a]? To my ears, they sound very different (much more so than for instance [o] and [O]). Andreas _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

Replies

Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>
Irina Rempt-Drijfhout <irina@...>