Re: YAEPT: apparently bizarre 'A's (was Re: YEAPT: f/T (was Re: Other Vulgar Lat

caeruleancentaur wrote:
[snip]
>
> If my [r] is /3/,
Haven't you got [] and / / the wrong way round?
doesn't that make me a rhotic American?

Not if your postvocalc /r/ is really [3], it doesn't, because [3] is not
a rhotic sound. It is low-mid central unrounded vowel, with no r-coloring.

> My [r] is
> still there. I am under the impression that non-rhotic means no
> sound where there is an [r], as in /hA:t/.  If the pronunciation
> is /hA:rt/ or /hA:3t/ or /hA:4t/ or even /hA:Rt/, then the speaker
> is rhotic.
[hArt], [hA4t] and [hARt] are indeed rhotic, as is [hA`] or [hA:`t],
with r-colored vowel.

But [A3] is surely a diphthong, beginning with a low back unrounded
vowel moving towards the mid-low central position. [A:3] is the same
diphthong with onset vowel being held longer (a "long diphthong").

> I realize, in investigating this, that I don't see a difference
> between /r/ and /3/.
[r] is strictly a trill made with the tip of the tongue, as in Italian.
[3] is a vowel with no trilling of the tongue.

> Do I assume correctly that /r/ is consonantal
> <red> and /3/ is vocalic <nurse>.
Phonologically both can vowels, but only [r] can be a consonant also -
it depends upon the phonology of a given language. But [3] is the sound
in the *non-rhotic* 'nurse' of us southern Britons. Most (all?) Merkans
give it an r-coloring of some sort. (I was going to suggest [n3`s] - but
I'm possibly wrong. I leave that Merkans on this list   :)

> And I've long wondered how [r] has come to be the grapheme for such
> variant phonemes as /r(or 4)/, /3/, /r\/, and /R/.
..and some others as well. It's to do with the way the sound has
developed over time within related languages.

BTW you seem to have interchanged [ ] and / / throughout. The square
brackets [] denote _phonetic_ values; these are not language dependent.
the slashes denote phonemes of a given language.

--
Ray
==================================
ray@carolandray.plus.com
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
MAKE POVERTY HISTORY

Reply