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

No, there's no contrast with /A:/ because */A/ doesn't exist. /Q/ does,
though. But vocalic length itself is distinguished in EE, e.g. between /E/
and /E:/ in /bEd/ <bed> vs. /bE:d/ <bared> (though this could also be
analysed as /bE@d/). Vocalic length is systematic, anyway, so it makes sense
to transcribe EE with /:/. /A:/ though it doesn't contrast with */A/ falls
into the "long vowel" category.
Dan


From: R A Brown
Subject: Re: Phonological equivalent of "The quick brown fox..."

Daniel Prohaska wrote:
[snip]
> You will hear both pronunciations in Britain /"g&rIdZ/ as well as
> /g@"rA:Z/. Note that English English /g@"rA:Z/ needs /A:/ with a length
> marker
"Does it? If the transcription were phonetic (between square brackets), I'd
agree. But is /:/ _phonemic_/? What Brit English words contrast /A/ and
/A:/?"

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

Daniel Prohaska wrote:
[snip]
 >
 > I forgot, there's also /"g&rA:Z/ in EE.

I forgot that too. But again I would not include /:/ in a phonemic
transcription. I'm not sure that it's really correct in a phonetic
transcription in this case either; from what I hear, the /A/ in /g@"rAZ/
is longer than that in /"g&rAZ/ - but that's determined by stress. But
British English does exhibit very considerable variation.

Reply