Re: Schwa and [V]: Learning the IPA

Roger Mills wrote:
> Andreas Johansson wrote:
>> I haven't followed this thread to closely, but some books transcribe RP
>> /V/ as
>> [6] (IPA turned a). Might this be the sound you're using?
>>
> It's possible, but I'd consider it idiolectal in an American-- we don't seem
> to use [6]...
> I've heard Ian Catford distinguish UK/RP "cuppa tea" (with [6]) vs. American
> "cuppa tea" with [V], and the difference is quite noticeable. (Of course,
> Catford is a Scot, but an educated one :-))) and fully competent in RP.)
>
> But I wonder if RP uses [6] in "butt, putt, mutt, rut" etc.-- at least when
> I pronounce them with [6], they sound quite strange.
>
It really depends on which IPA site you use for reference. This one

http://wso.williams.edu/~jdowse/ipa.html

has a very far-back-sounding [V], which doesn't sound anything at all
like typical American /V/'s that I'm familiar with. Their [3] and [6]
don't sound quite right either for /V/, but closer. I'd say that the /V/
in my speech is between [3] and [6], not very close to [V].

http://hctv.humnet.ucla.edu/departments/linguistics/VowelsandConsonants/course/chapter1/vowels.html

That site used to be the one I referred to for vowels, and the [6] on
that site sounds closer to /V/ than the [3] and [V]. But the recording
quality of the sounds on this site isn't as good as the first one, so it
can be hard to hear exactly what sounds they are.

http://www.ling.hf.ntnu.no/ipa/full/ipachart_vowels_fbmp3.html

That site has a [V] which to my ears doesn't sound as far back as it
ought to, and sounds more like English /V/ than the [V]'s on the other
sites. It's really hard to tell many of the vowels apart on this site.

There were a couple of other sites also, but I seem to have lost the
links to them. It seems that every one is a little bit different.

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