Re: Phonological equivalent of "The quick brown fox..."

I promise that what follows will be my final word on this tedious
thread.   ;)

Daniel Prohaska wrote:
[snip]
>
> Nothing in “phonemic theory” says that you cannot analyse regional variants
> separately, or local dialects, or even idiolects – nothing…
You can, but I am not convinced that this is always helpful. If we are
comparing 'true' dialects (i.e. those that differ not only phonetically,
but also in lexis, morphology and syntax) as still existed in Britain at
the beginning of the last century, then maybe this is so. But what we're
talking about here, I think, is rather regional variation in the
pronunciations of what is effectively the same language. I think
(without doing a 100% check) that my own "idiolect phonemic inventory"
will map (almost) entirely 1:1 to yours - just the symbols will be
different. Personally I think this is more illuminating if these are
treated as _regionally conditioned allophones_.


I'm not clear why you put phonemic theory between quotes. It is after
all a _theory_; there are alternatives to phonemic analyses.

But when Sai began this thread on 1st Feb. by asking: "What are
equivalent spoken phrases, i.e. that contain all (English)
phonemes ...?" I assumed he was after a sentence that would contain all
the phonemes, whatever variety of regional pronunciation was used (as
long as, of course, it did not depart so far from the 'norm' as to be
incomprehensible to most anglophones). Maybe I was wrong in my
interpretation.

Also on 1st Feb. Sanghyeon Seo replied: "That would heavily depend on
accents, right? This is definitely inviting YAEPT." To which I replied:
"I'm afraid it is. It will be obvious from the almost innumerable YAEPTs
that there is unlikely to be agreement over just what are all the
English phonemes."

Clearly Sanghyeon & I have been proved correct!

[snip]
> Yes, and that just depends on what variety you’re describing. I think you’re
> a little hung up on English RP school book phonemic analysis…,
Thank you!!! I moved on from school books some 50 years ago. I thought
it was obvious that I was talking about *global* English, not the
outdated RP  {sigh}

==================================

John Vertical wrote:
 >> But it seems to me to run counter to the phonemic theory to set up a
 >> phonemic inventory for the English of north-west England and thus
 >> separate ones for
 >
 > (list of dialects snipped)
 >
 > Incidentally... and in an attempt to steer this back towards the
 > original topic maybe... if analyzing English as a whole, shouldn't you
 > also set up separate phonemes such as the vowel in BATH, which, while
 > they aren't independant phonemes (from TRAP or FATHER in this case)
 > within any dialect, still behave distinctivly when considering all of
 > them?

Interesting point, but not as simple as some people suggest. There is a
pool of words where, I think, all who pronounce _bath_ [bA(:)T] use
[A(:)} (the [A] is not lengthened by all speakers) where others dialects
use [&] or [a], but there are a number of words such as _plastic_,
_drastic_, _Glasgow_ etc where practice varies very considerably. I have
[&] in those last three words, tho I do say [bAT], [p_hAT], [lAf],
[fAst] etc.

[snip]

 >> Applying Ockham's razor, /e/ would seem the best.
 >
 >> Ray
 >
 >
 > While I understand your generic point, I disagree on your interpretation
 > of the razor's usage here. I don't consider /e/ to be a fundamentally
 > simpler transcription than /e:/ just because it has one caracter less;
 > if you start transcribing a long/short contrast in the first place, my
 > interpretation is, then, that any vowel not explicitely marked as long
 > will be explicitely short.

Yes, but my point is that I do not think that length is phonemic in
global English.

 > For a
 > parallel, imagine transcribing the [b] in Arabic as /p/ on the basis
 > that unvoiced stops are more common.)

I fail to see how that is comparable. I was merely saying that my
preference for transcribing the 'arch-phoneme' realized in different
Englishes as [e], [e:], [eI], [ej], [Ej], [e@], [I@] inter_alia, is /e/.

==================================

I still agree with Roger Mills (4th Feb.):
{quote}
Most dialects of US/Canadian (and I think UK) English can be represented
with the same phonemic system, and departures from "the standard" can be
handled with various adjustment rules.
{/unquote}


--
Ray
==================================
ray@carolandray.plus.com
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
Phonemata non sunt multiplicanda
praeter necessitudinem.