Re: Schwa and [V]: Learning the IPA

Larry Sulky wrote:
> I think I must have totally missed everybody's points.  I didn't
> realise that the existence of [V], [U], or [@] in at least some
> American English dialects was in question.
I do not recall anyone questioning the existence of [U] in any American
dialect. The only reason [U] has occurred in this current version of the
[V] ~ [@] thread is that in England [sic], the phoneme generally
transcribed as /V/ is realized in the south as [V] and in the north as
[U]. As far as I know only the southern [V] pronunciation was ever
transported abroad to the Americas and other places where Brits settled.

> I'm from the American west
> coast, with influences from the American midwest and Toronto, Ontario.
>
> I pronounce "but" and the "a" in "about" as [V].
Do you? This side of the Pond the sounds just ain't the same. The _u_ in
_but_ is [V] down in southern England & in Wales, and generally [U] in
northern England (I think Scots also generally have [V]). But the _a_ in
_about_ is an unrounded _central_ mid vowel.

It is such statements made by north Americans in past threads that have
certainly given the impression that the two *phonemes* /@/ and /V/ have
fallen together in many parts of North America; indeed, your statement
above only confirms this.

> I pronounce "foot" and "put" as [U].
> I pronounce "boot" and "loon" as [u].
This is generally the case in most places. As far as I know, no one has
ever questioned this; but the pronunciation of the phoneme /u/ does very
in the anglophone world between AFAIK [u\] ~ [u] ~ [M]

> I pronounce the "i" in "hobbit" as [@].
But that means it's an allophone of /I/, doesn't it? This side of the
Pond it is still generally pronounced [I] when unstressed.

> So I think I've got everything. Don't I? --larry
But I was not aware that anyone was talking about *phones*.

The question was whether or not /@/ and /V/ are separate phonemes. It
has become apparent to me following similar threads over many years on
this list (look in the archives) that in some varieties of north
American English, at least, the two _phonemes_ have fallen together,
Indeed, your mail surely confirms this.
==============================================Mark J. Reed wrote:
 > On 6/14/06, Larry Sulky <larrysulky@...> wrote:
[snip]
 >> I pronounce "but" and the "a" in "about" as [V].
 >
 >
 > My question is: how sure are you about that?  I used to think the same
 > thing.  But neither my /V/ nor my /@/ is what the IPA calls [V].  The
 > core of David's complaint is that Americans generally seem not to have
 > [V] there, although of course there must be those who do.

Quite so. What I understood from these threads over the years is that
generally Merkans:
(a) have the same sound for the 'a' of 'about' and the 'u' of 'but'.
(b) the sound is some sort of central, unrounded vowel.

If I am mistaken, then presumably the information I have read is incorrect.

 > My realization that my /V/ is not IPA [@], either, is what started
 > this thread. :)

Ah. One of the problems IMO is that the IPA [@] is itself not clearly
defined!

Traditionally, the 'a' an about and the 'e' in French 'le' have both
been given the phoneme /@/. But the French sound is rounded, whereas the
English sound is not. If one examines the 2005 version of the IPA vowel
chart, the shwa symbol is given for:
_both_ (a) the unrounded, close-mid central vowel (CXS [@\]);
_and_ (b) for any central vowel, whether rounded or not, between
close-mid and open-mid (presumably CSX [@] denotes the same imprecisely
defined vowel).

This seems to me somewhat unsatisfactory. But clearly the traditional
use of [@] to indicate the English 'a' in 'about' and French 'e' in
'le', is the use of shwa (b) above, and not shwa (a).
==================================

Roger Mills wrote:
[snip]
 >
 > 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.

Not, I think, most so-called RP speakers now. It seems strange &
affected to me - I live just on the south-west of Greater London. But it
is reminiscent of the 'clipped' style one hears in newsreels etc from
the 1950s. One of the problems, of course, is that RP itself has changed
over the past half century or more also.

--
Ray
==================================
ray@carolandray.plus.com
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
"A mind which thinks at its own expense will always
interfere with language."         J.G. Hamann, 1760

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