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

Daniel Prohaska wrote:
> No, there's no contrast with /A:/ because */A/ doesn't exist.
If there's no contrast then [:] cannot surely be _phonemic_.

> /Q/ does, though.
I am aware of that - I've been speaking southern British English for
more than 60 years! But I fail to see how that is relevant to whether we
have /A/ ~ /A:/ or not.

> But vocalic length itself is distinguished in EE, e.g. between /E/
> and /E:/ in /bEd/ <bed> vs. /bE:d/ <bared>
I think not - there's certainly a _qualitative_ difference in the way I
say it (and I speak a normal non-rhotic SE England variety). In any
case, to give [:] phonemic status because of this pair only seems weak
to me.

> (though this could also be analysed as /bE@d/).
It could, and sometimes is. I have also seen it analyzed as /be@d/. But
I am not over fond of such analyses either as it means that we posit one
set of phonemes for non-rhotic varieties and a different set of phonemes
for English speakers in south-west England and among the rural dialects
of the Midlands and several parts of southern England with r-colored/
rhotic vowels (i.e. /bE`d/ or /be`d/. It also means that we have to have
yet a *third* set of phonemes for those speakers in much of Wales and in
the Scottish Highlands who actually have a apically trilled consonant in
_bared_, i.e. /berd/.

As all these dialect variants are _predictable_, it does not seem to me
sensible to be setting three different _phonemic_ realizations of the
|r| in _bared_ - indeed, unless I have completely misunderstood the
phonemic theory, I would have thought it was wrong to do so.

> Vocalic length is systematic, anyway, so it makes sense to transcribe EE with /:/.
I don't understand what you mean by the first clause, and - as you see
above - I do not agree with the second clause.

> /A:/ though it doesn't contrast with */A/ falls
> into the "long vowel" category.
It certainly does.

If the several past discussions on this list of the English phonemic
inventory are anything to go by, we'll probably finish up 'agreeing to
disagree'. As I wrote on 1st Feb:

{quote}
Sanghyeon Seo wrote:
 > 2007/2/1, Sai Emrys <sai@...>:
 >
 >> "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" is used to test
 >> typewriters because it contains all the letters of English.
 >>
 >> What are equivalent spoken phrases, i.e. that contain all (English)
 >> phonemes (or phones, if you feel particularly ambitious)?
 >
 >> That would heavily depend on accents, right? This is definitely
 >> inviting YAEPT.

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.
{/unquote}

--
Ray
==================================
ray@carolandray.plus.com
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
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Nid rhy hen neb i ddysgu.
There's none too old to learn.
[WELSH PROVERB}

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