Re: USAGE: Finnish and English vowels (was: Adapting non-Latin scripts)

On 25/05/06, John Vertical <johnvertical@...> wrote:
> > > Digress:
> > > We actually tend to view most of ours as sequences of multiple
> > > vowels - only the 8 monofthongs are seen as independant phonemes.
> >
> >Umm... So does that mean a word like /kAt/ you'd consider to rhyme
> >with a word like /pA:t/?
>
> No. The first has one /A/; the second has two. Nor would /pAAt/ rhyme with
> /pAkAt/, since this has two syllabes; the other has only one. So it's a
Yeah, I realised after I wrote that that things like stress will make
that different; not even "thing" and "anything" rhyme in English
because of stress. (I think I've asked the question before, but I
cannot recall the answer: In sung Australian English, you normally
(certainly to the extent you can) put long vowels on long notes and
short ones on short notes. I've heard in Finnish you just completely
ignore length 110%. Is that actually the case?)

> trade-in of phonemic length for phonemic syllabicity. Here's a neat minimal
> triplet:
A "trade-off". (Trade-ins completely replace one thing with another.)

> /v\AAn/ "but"
> /v\A.An/ "venerable.GEN"
> /v\AA.An/ "scales.GEN".
> All three are audibly different, but what exactly is going on is a bit hard
> to describe. Besides duration, tonality and laxing also have some part in
> it.
> (An epenthetic [?] can however be used as an easy alternativ.)
Scary! A case for considering a long vowel to be a long vowel, thus:
/v\A:n/, I would think.

> > > A syllabe-final glide interpretation works too, but then at least
> > > an additional schwa must be positioned.
> >
> >(I also thought there's a set of diphthongs
> >/ie/, /y2/, /uo/, which I can't see how you'd interpret them as
> >having syllable-final glides.)
>
> That's where that additional schwa comes in: /i@ y@ u@/. Long vowels will be
> /ij yv\ uv\ e@ 2@ &@ o@ a@/. It's something of a cheat, but it works, and
> makes the system a nice regular 4x8 block.
Youch! (Are the long vowels ever realised with /@/ offsets? /e:/ and
/o:/ are in AusE in free variation, though the monophthongal
realisations are much the commoner; one particular transcription
thereby considered /I@/ and /U@/ to be /I:/ and /U:/ and identified
the vowels in "pool" and "tour" ... I have nothing against the former;
in connected speech /I@/ is usually rendered /I:/ by me and my peers,
but the latter is a little adventurous, in my mind. Though the status
of the vowel in "pool" [pu:l] is somewhat more than allophonic, I'd
think, it's just as clearly not the same as "tour" [tua_"] as it is
not the same as "food" [fu\:d].)

> (The rare [iy ey] can be explained as front-harmonic allophones of /iv\
> ev\/, usually [iu eu]; this, however, might require that roots with only /i
> e/ must still underlyingly possess either front or back harmony...)
>
> -I should stress that this system is my own invention and would probably be
> scowled on by professional Finnish linguistics.
Yes; it strikes me as over-complicating the system; vowel length does
the trick well-enough...

...

> You are right; that is the distinction I was going for. FWIW, my (Finnish)
> /A/ is actually a central [a\] regardless of length...
And a very good vowel it is too! Maybe the Finns should learn
Australian accents :)

[quoting me]
> >(But then, his list I think was American, or at least rhotic; there
> >is no equivalent of the vowel /3:/, unnecessary in American English,
> >but necessary for Australian and RP ... although then it's to
> >distinguish "hurry" /hVri/=[ha_"r\i] from "furry" /f3ri/=[f2:r\i],
> >which I suppose you could do in a somewhat abstract way with only
> >/A/ and /@/. It'd be funny to consider /@/ a long vowel, though.)
>
> And again, that's exactly what I was doing. I gess I could also consider
> adding /@:/, but that would leave /@/ as only occuring in unstressed
> syllabes. For phonetic reasons, I'll rather merge it with /@:/ than /V/.
> Sounds like a better match to my ears.
Confusion?! You were analysing "bird" as /"b@d/? That strikes me as
more than a bit funny, considering /@/ a long vowel [;)]. Fact of the
matter is, /@/ *does* occur only in unstressed syllables. You could
variously (depending on context) unify it with /e/, /i/ and /A/ if you
want to eliminate it, which has the advantage of being somewhat
intuitive. Coming from a Finnish perspective (but biased by my native
dialect), the Finnish vowel /2:/ seems the best choice for the vowel
in "bird", even though it means we've got a vowel that's only ever
long---but that accords with the nature of the language. Last but not
least, there's the possibility of considering [@] to be /2/. Front
rounded vowels and central vowels are somewhat similar phonetically,
and seeing as the vowel is only used in unstressed syllables it'll
lose parts of its quality anyway...

(Then again, I suppose you were trying to be a bit outlandish---it
just didn't seem all that much, considering again my native dialect :)

[And if you were going for non-rhotic, then you forgot an equivalent
of /e:/, /I@/ and /U@/.]

> Yet another possibility would be to use a syllabic /r/ there.
 ...

> Yeah. That works. Of course, without a central regulating body, it'll never
> actually break into usage... I suspect English orthography won't get any
> major revamps until it's already broken down into a full-grown language
> family a few centuries from now. I hope to get at least minor fixes in
> before that, however.
You reckon we respell then? You are an optimist aren't you!

--
Tristan.