Re: Phonology

>From: Roger Mills <romilly@...>
>Reply-To: Constructed Languages List <CONLANG@...>
>To: CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU
>Subject: Re: Phonology
>Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2002 12:52:26 -0400
>
>That's because they're aimed at a native speaker of English (hopefully
>British or American), who may not yet have managed to disconnect Engl.
>spelling from phonemics/phonetics.  "ay" is what we so quaintly call "long
>a", that is /ey/ [e(I)], and "ee" is our "long e" /iy/ [i(j)].  It might
>have been clearer to have said "...the vowel of _great, mate, say, etc._,
>but no matter. (Australians need not comment.;-)
Yeah. The thing that's difficult is not what <ay> means; I know that well
enough. It's just that instructions including "saying X and Y at the same
time" have never got me to anything else than trying to tear my lips,
whatever was the ortography used.


>(FWIW, years ago, pre-phonetics, instructions identical to Christian's
>enabled me to produce [y] and [ö] for the first time. It was one of those
>_Oh wow! so that's how they do it!!_ moments, which led to the immediate
>discovery that _any_ vowel could be rounded/unrounded at will.)
Hope I didn't sound like I was criticizing anything Mr. Thalmann said. Not
at all! I merely wanted to add a note about an alternative. Different people
think in different ways, as you surely know. :) I for one learned [M] and
[7] by thinking them as backed or unrounded versions of other vowels, and
that was when I was even more of a beginner in phonetics (didn't know those
terms even).


> >On the subject, is there any tricks for how to better hear the difference
> >between spoken sounds - in addition of listening the sound files over and
> >over again?
>
>Do you mean, in connected speech?  That's hard.  If you ask the person to
>repeat, you won't necessarily get the same thing again! If you ask them to
>slow down, it won't be the same either. You need to tape record it, then
>make a loop and listen, listen, listen.  (I used to have a little Aiwa
>portable/battery machine that had a built in loop-mechanism, very nice and
>excellent for field work; but no doubt technology has marched on......)
In speech or apart. - Yes again, I guessed that answer. ;P Thank you anyway.


---
-M. Å.

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