Re: E and e (was: A break in the evils of English (or, Sturnan is beautiful))

On Fri, 2002-05-03 at 15:41, Raymond Brown wrote:
> At 7:32 pm +1000 2/5/02, Tristan wrote:
> >On Thu, 2002-05-02 at 15:08, Raymond Brown wrote:
> >
> >[Talk of the primary feature.]
> >
> >Consider an hypothetical language. It has the following consonants:
> >[x s t_D p] (and no others). None are allophones for the other; each are
> >individual sounds. Nor do any have any (important) allophones. What is
> >the primary distinction between [x] and [p]? POA or TOA? Should they be
> >phonematicised as /x/ and /k/ or /k/ and /p/? Or as /x/ and /p/?
>
> The phonemic theory does not IMO tell the whole story.  Hypothetical
> languages can easily be constructed to make any theory fall down.  I don't
> reallly understand what sound [t_D] is, it seems odd to have a voiced
> off-glide from a voicless plosive.
Oh... Whoops, I thought it was dental.

>  To be honest, if I ever came across a
> language with only four consonants, and those in such odd distribution, I
> would suspect I didn't have the whole story and want to know more.
Well, maybe there was some nasals and trills and laterals too, then. I
realise it's an odd distribution, but languages are a Human thing! (Of
all things, curse those humans, etc.)

[snip]

> >> Like in Erinsborough?   :)
> >
> >Well, isn't Erinsborough in NSW? ;) (<--- I know it's recorded in
> >Melbourne)
>
> Is it?  All I knew is that it was filmed in Melbourne.
Yeah. They go on about all sorts of weird New South Welsh things, like
the HSC and stuff. It's most bizarre. And yet they talk of places in
Melbourne as close by. It's sort of neither here, neither there. But
it's *supposed* to be in NSW.

> >To be honest, I don't know if they're using normal speech or
> >not. I've only briefly watched the show (about long enough to walk into
> >the loungeroom and turn the tv. off). And anyway, I'm no good at hearing
> >accents on the television.
>
> But 'Neighbours' and 'Home & Away' (never taken to the latter and not seen
> Neighbours much since nine years or so back) are what we regard as example
> typical Oz  :))
I heard that 'Home and Away' actors had to change accents to a more
international one when it began going overseas. Although I've seen even
less of it than 'Neighbours', so I have no idea how they do speak or did
speak...

> >> ======================
> >>    XRICTOC ANECTH
> >> ======================
>
> It's Greek /xris"tos a"nesti/  - it's the greeting Greeks give one another
> at Eastertide.  It means "Christ is risen".  The reply is /a"nesti ali"Tos/
> "He is truly risen".  The / / enclose phonemic values; the Greek I've heard
> pronounce /e/ and /o/ are rather lower and closer to [E] and [O].
That'd be an odd transliteration, wouldn't it?

> ------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 12:13 pm -0400 2/5/02, John Cowan wrote:
> >Tristan scripsit:
> [nip]
> >
> >> And this description of US/RP English... what does it do with 'class'
> >> /clAs/ but 'gas' /g{s/ versus /cl{s/ and /g{s/? Just call it an
> >> exception?
> >
> >U.S. English doesn't have [klA:s].
Precisely my point.

> Nor much of Britain.  In most dialects the sound is the same in both words,
> either /kl{s/ & /g{s/ or /klas/ & /gas/.  RP actually had /klAs/ ([a] is
> not used down here in the south east) and the pronunciations /klAs/ & /g{s/
> are a peculiarity of south-east England (and the so-called "RP").
Sounds to me like Aussie English adopts a fair amount from RP. Although
I guess that shouldn't be surprising, RP is the most 'understandable'
British accent.

------------------

On Fri, 2002-05-03 at 09:17, Roger Mills wrote:
> John Cowan wrote:
> >
> >No, Tristan is perfectly correct:  "heart" and "hut" are [ha:t] and
> >[hat]. Australian English has no low back vowels at all, and the
> > length of [a] is phonemicized.  (This on Nick Nicholas's authority.)
Who is Nick Nicholas?

> Accepted.  That would appear true for Aust., in isolation. The
> question would then be, is the length _always_ a subsitute for a lost
> /r/ in the env. V__C,  where it could indeed be lost irretrievably. If
> so, that would suggest /r/ or at least "something" is still there
> underlyingly.  Or has Aust. phonemicized length in other, non-r,
> environments? That would be interesting.
As stated by someone, the irregular /gQ:n/ pronunciation of 'gone'.
/gO:n/ and /gQn/ are both highly wrong. It's certainly /gQ:n/. Also,
words with /{/ before an voiced vowel will sometimes lengthen,
othertimes not. This is entirely unpredictable as far as I can tell.

Can anyone thing of a word that has <ors(C)#>, where the <or> is any
sequence of sounds that would render as /O:/ other than <au>-style
things, <s> is unvoiced, C is an unvoiced stop and # the end of a
syllable other than 'Forster'? It might help prove or disprove whether
the 'r' is completely gone when the next sound is a consonant, or if
it's just a phonemic rendering. (I'm excluding 'Forster' because it's a
name and has the conflicting 'Foster'.)

Tristan