Re: Schwa and [V]: Learning the IPA

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:/.
==================================

Tristan Alexander McLeay wrote:
[snip]
>
> Yours is one of the English dialects that pronounce e.g. "cure" as
> "kyaw", yes? Is that categorical, or just a tendency?
I've got a bit lost - not sure if the question is directed to me, Daniel
or Joe. But FIW around this way it's [k_hju@] - but 'twould not surprise
me if one of my compatriots has [k_hjO:]
===================================
Paul Roser wrote:
> On Thu, 15 Jun 2006 16:44:30 -0400, Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
wrote:
[snip]
>>Yeah.  The so-called "cardinal" vowels - around the perimeter of the
>>IPA chart - are, *by definition*, at articulatory extremes.  If your
>>/V/ (or /u/ or /o/ or /Q/, or their oppositely-rounded numbers) isn't
>>pronounced with your tongue as far back in your mouth as you can get
>>it while still able to pronounce a vowel, then it ain't IPA [V].
>
>
> Right - *official* IPA has [V] as the low-mid back unround vowel, the
> counterpart to [O] (reversed c), *however* Wells and just about every
other
> text I've ever seen on English phonetics and phonology uses this
symbol for
> the stressed vowel in /but, cut, above/ etc. So there's a definite
> disconnect between how the IPA interprets the symbol cross-linguistically
> and how English specialists interpret it.
Surely it depends upon which variety of English one is speaking about.
One thing that surely has become clear as this thread progresses is that
there simply is _not_ one uniform way in which /V/ is pronounced in the
anglophone world. If Wells are describing RP, then surely [V] is about
right and there is no disconnect. If, however, they are describing some
other variety, there would be.
=======================================

Larry Sulky wrote:
[snip]
> I just don't know what to think.
>
> I went to the site cited above, and there my pronunciation of this
> mystery vowel in "but" and "cut" is very close to the thing that looks
> like a "3". So I go to the X Sampa wiki to determine which X Sampa
> character that is, so I can tell you all about it, and, not
> surprisingly, it's [3]. Then I read the description and it says
> "open-mid central unrounded vowel" and I figure "okay, there's the
> difference at last, the sound I was talking about before is mid back
> and this one that I actually use is mid central".
>
> Then I look at the example: "English nurse [n3:s] (RP) or [n3`s]
> (Gen.Am.)".
[snip]
> So who's lying? Wiki? Or Williams?
Wiki.

[n3:s] is about right for the non-rhotic parts of England, [n3`s] is
heard in the rhotic south west & west Midlands. I don't know who wrote
the Wiki, but probably someone without much first-hand knowledge of
Merkan English.
==================================

Larry Sulky wrote:
 > On 6/16/06, Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> wrote:
[snip]
 >> Also, many Americans render "nurse" as [nr\=s], which is quite
 >> different from
 >> [n3s] in sound; maybe you're among them.
 >>
 >>                                                         Andreas
 >>
 >
 > I'm sure I am. Along with about 80% of the American and Canadian
 > population (pretty much everybody who's not on the Atlantic seaboard).

Yep - that's what I've understood to be the most common north American
pronunciation which, as Andreas writes, is quite different from [n3s].
So your /V/ may well be [3].

--
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


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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