Re: USAGE: English vowel transcription [Re: Droppin' D's Revisited]

I'm using Yoon Ha's post to reply to, but it's actually an omnibus reply to
several:

I too think Adrian must have slipped up, when he wrote /bit/ 'bit' vs.
/bI:t/ 'beat' (even allowing for Australian English....;-) ), and no wonder
Irina was perplexed about /bI:t/ = more or less ?bate-- as I understand it,
Dutch "short (or lax?) i" is indeed lower than Engl. [I], tending a little
toward [e].


>On Wed, 11 Oct 2000, dirk elzinga wrote:
>> There are two traditions for transcribing the distinction between
>> English "long" (or tense) and "short" (or lax) vowels. The first may
>> be termed "qualitative" and distinguishes tense and lax vowels based
>> on their phonetic quality. Hence, tense [i] and lax [I]. >
        In my experience, this is favored more by British writers.

>The second
>> tradition may be termed "quantitative". Quantitative systems
>> represent tense vowels by by adding an additional symbol to the
>> character used to represent lax vowels. This additional symbol may be
>> the length mark [i:], a copy of the vowel [ii], or a glide [ij/iy]. ....
I lean towards a qualitative transcription, although I will often add
>> a glide to a non-low tense vowel if the context demands clarification
>> of weight/length properties.
>>
>>         lax     tense
>>         [I]     [iy]
>>         [E]     [ey]
>>         [U]     [uw]
>>         [O]*    [ow]>
        More the US tradition. So phonemically /bit/ 'bit' vs. /biyt/ 'beat;
beet'

Yoon Ha wrote:
><blink>  So *that's* what the stupid long/short vowel thing was all about?>
        Well, not quite........

>Okay, okay, it isn't stupid, but "long" and "short" vowels were presented
>to me in kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grade as if they were obvious from
>listening to the vowel, which to me they weren't.
        The famous disconnect between Engl. spelling and phonetics.  I was
originally taught:  short a as in mat, long a as in mate;  short i as it
bit, long i as in bite, and so on.... short o as in hop, long o as in hope.
"Long/short" is genrally correct in historical terms, but of course [æ],
[I], [a] are now totally unrelated phonetically to [eI], [aI] and [oU] etc.
(This is General American, of course; and it does make some sense in terms
of teaching kids very general principles of spelling.)  I can't suggest any
way around this, although a little introduction to phonetics in some later
grade might help-- and would certainly help learners of the usual European
languages.  "Why does Spanish pronounce "i" like "ee" ?  It doesn't make any
sense" etc.  (When in fact it's English that doesn't make much sense!)

The question of the double "p" in "happy" seems to me to belong in the same
category, a Germanic spelling convention common IIRC to German and Dutch at
least --monosyllables containing short/lax vowels must be closed; in affixed
forms, or polysyllables, they must be followed by a double cons. (or a
digraph of some sort)-- and English seems to use the same rule.  So assuming
an old root {hap} (cf. hapless?) hap+y > happy (even though it's no longer a
transparent derivative.)  Cf. tip: tippy, tipped; cat: catty; mat: matting,
matted.  The double cons. also tells writers where to hyphenate if
necessary: hap-py, mat-ting.

There does seem to be a conflict between underlying form (base+affix, hap+y,
cat+y, tip+ed, mat+ing_ ) and syllabification of the surface phonetic form
[hæ.pI, kæ.tI, mæ.tIN]

The difference between the archaic adj. "stilly" /stIl+I/  vs. adv. "stilly"
(with lengthened _l_) /stIl+lI/ must depend on the underlying structure.
(If I ever used the adv. form, I'd pronounce it with lengthened _l_ too; but
not total: totally, nor whole: wholly, or most others with final _l_ -- hmm,
that's curious...........)