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

From:John Vertical <johnvertical@...>
Date:Wednesday, February 22, 2006, 19:30
>If my [r] is /3/, doesn't that make me a rhotic American? 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.
Okay, another bug fix - [ ] are phonetical brackets. For representing written letters, <r> or |r| is used. (I'm not sure what the exact difference between _those_ is, but I use mostly the angulars - they're more legible.) Anyway, non-rhotic accents having centring difthongs derived from V + /r/, like /e@/ or /E@/ for "air", (could be well analyzed as /e3/ like you'd probably do) doesn't stop them from being called non-rhotic. I doubt having more of these difthongs than usual would's be a problem either - so it would be more about the actual phonetic realization.
>I realize, in investigating this, that I don't see a difference >between /r/ and /3/. Do I assume correctly that /r/ is consonantal ><red> and /3/ is vocalic <nurse>.
I agree that it's safe to say that /r/ is a semi-vowel corresponding with /3/. But they're still not the same, just like /w/ and /u/ or /j/ and /i/ are. Compare pairs like stirring / string. You do seem to have a point that if other difthongs are transcribed as vowel+vowel and not vowel+glide, the same should apply to /r/ / /3/ too - so eg. "Marlowe" should be either /mArlow/ or /mA3lou/...
>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/. > >Charlie
Sound shifts. Compare <u> being used for all of /V U ju w/ in English alone. (And maybe /a/ in eg. "guy".) John Vertical

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Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>