Re: vowel descriptions

At 07:22 PM 12/15/98 +0000, you wrote:
>Don, in suggesting northern England, puts his finger right on the problem
>with helping Garret.  The discriptions are, alas, too unclear unless one
>knows what variety of English Garret speaks.
2 t's (GarretT)
>
>Her/his:
>" a (in dot, faught; open 'a')"
>must surely point to an American variety!  I've lived in Britain now for
>nearly 60 years and all the varieties of Brit.English I've encountered do
>not give the same sound to the vowel in 'dot' and 'faught'.
Yes, I'm from California. I want the Spanish "a". You know, not as open as
in "cat", and not like the closed sound some speakers pronounce in
"caught". Here are all the words I pronounce with the same sound:

Tall, faught, dot, wrong, chalk, calm, lock, process

>
>At 10:57 pm -0500 14/12/98, Don Blaheta wrote:
>>Quoth Garrett:
>>> I need a little help - How do i describe the following vowels
>>> (front/central/back, high/mid/low), and what are their ASCII IPA
>>> representations?
>>>
>>> r (in her, sure)
>>        Usually a mid-central vowel, with rhoticity.  ASCII-IPA is
>>        unclear; R would be okay if you aren't using a uvular trill.
>
>In the south east and some other parts of south Britain the {r} is
>_silent_.  But the vowel before it has normally been modified; however the
>vowels of 'her' and 'sure' are very different this side of the pond.
>
>Actually, of course, it's also silent in American and Brit dialects of
>southwest England, rural areas of southern England & Midlands, much of
>Lowland scots and Irish that have retroflex vowels - it's not dissimilar to
>the postvocalic -n phenomenon in French: the letter has ceased to be
>pronounced as a consonant and the preceeding vowel has taken on the quality
>of the lost consonant: nasality in the case of French post-vocalic -n,
>retroflexion in the case of American Eng. & those Brit. varieties mentioned
>above.
>
>Only in Wales, Highland Scots & some parts of north England IIRC is
>post-vocalic -r still a real consonant, being trilled on the apex of the
>tongue (tho in some parts of north Wales & N.E. England the trill is made
>with the uvular).
I just consider 'er' to be one vowel sound. Like Nik Taylor said, /r=/ is
to /r/ as /i/ is to /j/. I pronounce these all with the same sound:

Her, hurt, Curt, Fir, Curry (krr-ee), church, firm, water

>
>>> w (in put, book
>>        back, high-mid, round, lax.  U.
>>>    *or* cut, what)
>>        mid, central, unround.  ^ or V.  A completely different vowel,
>>        in most people's dialects.  You aren't perhaps from northern
>>        England, are you?  (If you are, you want [U].)
>
>No - in north England the vowels of 'put' and 'book' are different.  'book'
>is always [bu:k] (or in Scouse - one of my colleagues is Scouse - [bu:kx]).
>And certainly the vowels of 'cut' and 'what' are different in
>Brit.varieties, the vowl of 'what' being the same as that of 'dot'.
The 'u' in 'put' and 'book' is between "cut" and "boot". The 'w' vowel will
be able to be said either as in 'put' or as in 'cut'. The two sounds are
different, but either will be acceptable; they sound pretty close to each
other. The following all have the same vowel sound for me:

cut, what, such, compose (1st syll), done, come, republic (2nd syll)

The following all have the same vowel sound with each other:

put, cook, book, could/would/should


>
>>> u (in luke, toot)
>>        back, high, round, tense.  u.
>
>Same vowel in the way I say the words, but some in this neck of the woods
>do say [lju:k] and down in in Welsh English it's [lIwk].
>
>>> o (in go, rote)
>>        back, mid, round, tense.  o.
>But generally diphthongized [ou] though some Brit. varieties do have a pure
>vowel.
>
> >> a (in dot, faught; open 'a')
>>        Gaaah.  You probably mean
>>           back, low, round.  A.
>>        but you might mean
>>           back, low-mid, round, lax.  O.
>>        or possibly
>>           front, low, unround.  a.
>>        or something else entirely.
>
>Yes, indeed!
>
>>(Going back to the northern English
>>        hypothesis, you probably want [A].)
>
>For both those sounds? Not the northerners I've met.
California... how do we say it?

>
>Ray.
>
>
>
--
-Time is what keeps everything from happening at once.

-Garrett Jones aka Alkaline
Rising Sun - C&C2: Tiberian Sun - http://www.cnc2.com/
Malat - http://www.metro.net/3jones/malat/