Re: The Language Code (take 4)

Quoting Dirk Elzinga <dirk_elzinga@...>:

> On Saturday, June 14, 2003, at 07:40  AM, And Rosta wrote:
> >> English: Tn Pt*p++24,9(c)v(c) Wntar-- Mi++f+dt2a3c2n2 Sf++bsvoargn
> >> Lc++d+1000000+
> >
> > To get English down to 9 vowels requires a degree of ruthless parsimony
> > that would be highly controversial. At a purely descriptive level
> > (i.e. in the Code's spirit of providing a flavour of the language
> > rather than an analysis of it), I would say English has 19-22 vowels
> > (for my accent; 19 definites + 3 marginals). Student textbooks and
> > modern British dictionaries would use 20. That figure of c.20 better
> > reflects the typological eccentricity of the English vowel system
> > & the fact that it is responsible for most dialectal variation.
>
> 20 vowels?! Are they all distinctive? I agree that 9 vowels is too few
> (I don't remember where that came from), but I can only get 13,
> including diphthongs (14 if I include [O], which I don't have
> natively). Of course, my dialect is rhotic, and I don't treat coda-r as
> forming a diphthong with a preceding vowel nucleus.
My impression is that this tendency in Britain to treat (non)rhotic
diphthongs as unit phonemes rather than two distinct segments
is a cultural difference between British and American linguists,
rather than differences in facts or analysis per se. (I base
this impression on Iggy Roca's _Phonology_.)

> For the sake of comparison, I have:
>
> [I E & V A U i u aI OI eI aU oU]
For me:

[I E & @ r= a A U< i: u:< aI/a: o:i e:i &U oU]

The two back high round vowels are fronter than General American,
and whether I have [aI] or [a:] depends on register. Of course,
I also have no distinction between [V] and [@].

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier            "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637

Reply