Re: Schwa and [V]: Learning the IPA

Larry Sulky wrote:
> > > >  >> http://wso.williams.edu/~jdowse/ipa.html
> >
>
> 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].
That was my rather surprising discovery too-- though I was using "butt,
cut"-- since "but" hardly ever has that vowel due to usual occurrence in
unstressed (and often fast) environments.

> 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.)".
>
> !?*&*#?!!
Right. It certainly doesn't match my one verifiable ex. "smirk" as
pronounced by Ronald Langacker (a Scot IIRC, perhaps that's the
problem--though his accent always stuck me as quite English/RP [30 yrs.
ago])-- I certainly would call that [sm3:k].
>
> There is NO WAY that I (or the great majority of Americans, I strongly
> claim) have the same vowel in "nurse" as in "cut".
No indeedy. (Even making allowance for the /r/...For me, "cut" [kVt] with
[@] [k@t] isn't an Am.Engl. word; with an r ?[k@r\t] I'd mistake it for
"cart" though a bit off-- note that others (Tristan in Oz IIRC) thought
[k@t] sounded more like "curt". Go figure.)
>
> So who's lying? Wiki? Or Williams?
>
Now, now, no need to get snippy :-))  Perhaps it's because an IPA sound
represents a standard (but based on what????), and a given language may use
a modified-- raised/lowered/fronted/backed-- version as its norm.

To my complaint that none of these IPA sites had anything resembling my
"cot, hot, pot" vowel [A]??, note Andreas J's relevant comment--
"In practice, [a] is often used for vowels intermediate between cardinal [a]
and
[A], so it's probably the best notation for your /A/, then, unless you want
to
be really precise and write [A_+] or something."

Perhaps the same goes for US [V] too. As _phonemes_, these can be assigned
any convenient symbol (in practice, the closest IPA symbol), followed by a
clear statement about the _phonetics_. Thus I might have to say: "My /a/
phoneme is realized as [A_+] in most environments, [6_o] (lowered 6) in
others e.g. the diphthong /ay/ as in "write".  Etc. etc. etc.

Worth pointing out that my own speech underwent some conscious changes when
I went from the Midwestern boondocks to a posh Eastern boarding school for
high school. Trauma!! Most classmates were from NYC/Boston/Phila, and
"Upper~Monied Class". Their most noticeable feature was [A] (matching the
sound at the Williams.edu site) in words like water, father, and in their
/ay/ diphthong.  They parodied my "water, father" as very nasal [w&t@r\,
f&D@r\]; those of us who weren't "Eastern/U" parodied their "I, right" as
[Oj, r\Ojt]. I never fully adopted that accent, but on one occasion did
pronounce "erratic" as "erotic" :-((. For a while I dropped r's too, but
that didn't stick once I left that hothouse and entered the real world. I
still vacillate between "water" with my open pot/hot vowel [wA_+t@r\] and
more back/rounded acquired [wOt@r\], as well as original "rather" [r\&D@r\]
vs. acquired [r\A_+D@r\].

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