Re: CHAT: Phonemic status of English interdentals

Josh Roth wrote:

>In a message dated 10/9/02 8:05:15 AM, morg0072@FLINDERS.EDU.AU writes:
>
>
>
>>Josh Roth wrote, quoting Tristan:
>>
>>
>>
>>>>unless you analyse [&l] as /el/, which doesn't explain why 'shall'
>>>>and 'shell' are homophones. Not that I know a lot about phonemes...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Well I'm not too familiar with your speech variety at all (I've only
>>>heard Australian speech in some beer commercials I think!). Those two
>>>words are not homophones for me though, the first is /S&l/ and the
>>>second /SEl/.
>>>
>>>
>>Most Australians will agree with you. However, Tristan comes from
>>Victoria where people often have a noticeably lower /E/ in certain
>>positions, e.g. before /l/. For some Victorian speakers this /E/ can
>>be as low as /&/, or so close that I can't tell the difference. One
>>of my non-current lecturers is an example.
>>
>>
>
>Thank you for explaining that.
>
I dunno just how low it is in any conditions but before /l/... Our /e/
generally sounds different from the American (/E/). (/l/, on the other
hand, seems to have this aversion to the high front position, pushing
[}:] back, [i:] to [I:], [e] to [&]. It also mucks around with (short)
[a], causing it to round and back into [O].

>>Note: I'll happily use either /E/ or /e/ to denote the same phoneme.
>>
>>
>You have no distinction between the two then? Very interesting....
>
Not really; it's more that they denote the same phoneme ('get'). The
sound Americans right as /e/ (which is really long and/or diphthongised)
corresponds with out /&i/ ('gate'). /e/ is used because, because
Australians are closer to the top of the world (it being conventional to
draw maps upside-down), the /e/-vowel is high enough that it's
considerably closer to [e] than [E]. And anyway, when choosing the
symbol to write your vowels with, the IPA suggests using the simpler; a
simple <e> is simpler than an <epsilon>.

>Hmmm ... yes it could be dangerous if you're not used to it, I suppose. I
>once met in Israel a Hungarian who spoke English pretty well but always
>replaced /T/ and /D/ with /s/ and /z/ (I thought for the longest time he was
>very interested in Seattle, and kind of nodded along, but finally one day it
>dawned on me that he meant "theater"). I thought I'd be nice and help him one
>day to pronounce the interdentals, and was surprised to learn that he had no
>trouble saying them. He just prefered not to use them cause he didn't like
>the sounds. I was quite amused.
>
My aunt, now retired but formerly a Christian missionary/nurse in
Thailand, told me a story of trying to teach some Muslim girls how to
make the sound when teaching them English. Apparently it was very
difficult to convince them to stick their tongues out for religious reasons.

Tristan

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