Re: Schwa and [V]: Learning the IPA

On 6/14/06, David J. Peterson <dedalvs@...> wrote:
> Mark J. Reed wrote:
> <<
> Are you saying that the
> schwa has no separate phonemic status in English?
>  >>
>
> I don't know how anything I said could possibly have been
> misconstrued as the above.
All you said was something about a "myth"; I was merely trying to
identify what myth that was.  The above was the only thing that sprang
to mind as likely.

> <<
> Likewise, the /V/ symbol is commonly used to represent the vowel which
> appears in stressed form in "cut" and in unstressed form in "hiccup".
>  >>
>
> And the use of the symbol is what I have a problem with.
OK.  Why?  I mean, it's a phoneme; the symbol is arbitrary.  It mean,
sure, it's meant to be suggestive of at least one of the associated
allophones in some 'lect somewhere, but that's not a very stringent
requirement.

If someone recorded your personal speech in narrow phonetic
transcription, and that transcription included [V], then you'd have
something to complain about.  Otherwise, I see no objection - and no
myth.

> That the exact phonetic sound [V] exists in US English
Ah.  That would, indeed, be a myth, but when did anyone make that
claim?  I began this thread by noting that I was once personally under
that misapprehension, but that's hardly the IPA's fault.

--
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>

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