Re: Schwa and [V]: Learning the IPA

R A Brown wrote:

> 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
>>>
>>> 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.
>>> Dan
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> 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.  I'm the opposite to Daniel, though.  I tend to use
>> [I:] word-finally and [I@] medially, the latter not consistently.
>
>
> This is all very interesting - but my original statement was that vowel
> length was not *phonemic* in my neck of the woods.  All  the counter
> examples so far have been _phonetic_. Indeed, the fact that you write
> /ir/ and /Er/ show that phonemically you do not regard them /I:/ and
> /E:/.

Well, no, I'm using /ir/ and /Er/ to (non-standardly, admittedly) denote
the phonemes without prejudice to dialect.  It would be just as valid,
in my dialect, to call them /I:/ or /E:/, IMO.