Re: Schwa and [V]: Learning the IPA

On 16/06/06, Joe <joe@...> wrote:
> daniel prohaska wrote:
>
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: R A Brown
> >
> >Joe wrote:
> >[snip]
> >
> >
> >>Hm, well, certainly in my dialect, /ir/ is pronounced [I:],
> >>
> >>
> >
> >Really? I've encountered it as [i@] (the usual pronunciation around this
> >way), [i`] or [ir]. So your 'beard' is like my 'bid'?
> >Ray
Probably not, unless your "bid" is particularly long. Far as I'm
aware, the allophonic extra length doesn't approach the phonemic extra
length in centralising diphthong monophothisations.

IOW, for me and I'd assume Joe, "bid" is still longer than "bit", and
the difference is probably comparable to the difference for you. The
colon is relative to the length of "bid", not "bit".

> >That, and/or something similar is frequently heard in the UK. My lect varies
> >between [e@] (word finally, e.g. <beer>) and [e:] (medially <beard>), though
> >younger people have [e:] or [I:] for both.
...
> Indeed, it seems to be much more common among young people.  It's not as
> far advanced in /ir/ as in /Er/.  [E@] comes off to me as very
> old-fashioned, whereas [I@] or [i@] are fairly normal pronunciations.
Much the same over here. Though because /@/ is lowered to [a_"]~[6]
word/phrase finally, and because in other contexts the monophthongal
pronunciation is more common, the diphthong tends actually to be more
like [ia_"]-ish.

> I'm the opposite to Daniel, though.  I tend to use [I:] word-finally and
> [I@] medially, the latter not consistently.
I'd have to agree with Daniel here, though (though when I thought that
it was [... hI: ...]). Still, the monophthong tends to be used before
any consonant (including epenthetic [r\]); whereas word finally, it's
most common in common words (like "here").

>There are other
> monophthongisations.  For example, 'our' is always pronounced [A:],
> which actually contrasts with 'hour' [Au@].  I'd guess they're the same
> in Ray's 'lect.
I've heard that pronounce "our" like "are" is common in Britain and
America alike. (In Australia, I think pronouncing it as [&O] "ow" is
much more common---but a following epenthetic [r\] is more common than
it should be. I hazard this is influenced by the non-high nature of
the vowel, rather than solely a function of etymology.)

Yours is one of the English dialects that pronounce e.g. "cure" as
"kyaw", yes? Is that categorical, or just a tendency?

--
Tristan.