Re: David P's "month" (was: Poll by Email No. 3)

In a message dated 03/10/02 5:57:21 PM, suomenkieli@YAHOO.COM writes:

<< Not sure, though, if I'm confused or totally wrong
about the "u" of _muse_.  I think it would be /y/ --
is that the same sound as [ju].  All I can recall is
that if a value is given between brackets [] or slashs
//, then it may have a different corresponding sound.
Does [ju] equal /y/ ?  Sorry for the elementary
questions, folks! >>

?  English doesn't have the vowel [y].  Some have noted that it's kind of
starting to crop up in some Souther Californian's English in words like
"food", but that's not 100% of the time.  In my English, "muse" definitely
rhymes with "use", which is [juz], and [ju] does not equal [y].  One is an
on-glide diphthong, the other is a high, front, rounded vowel.  When you put
something in brackets [], it's the actual sound.  When you put it in //, it's
the phoneme.  So (maybe), "muse" in phonemes would be written /muz/, where
[ju] and [u] could be considered allophones.  As for the s/z thing, I have a
minimal pair with "use" [juz] (the verb) and "use" [jus] (the noun).  (Of
course, phonetics complicates the issue by saying that word-final fricatives
in English are always unvoiced, or, if voiced, only partially so.
Nevertheless, there is a difference between /z/ and /s/ in English, even if
it's not voicing--has to do with duration and the tightness of the closure.)
    So...yeah.

-David

"Zi hiwejnat zodZaraDatsi pat Zi mirejsat dZaCajani sUlo."
"The future's uncertain and the end is always near."
                --Jim Morrison

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