Re: troubles with IPA vowels (was: Leute)

J. 'Mach" Wust wrote:
>John Cowan wrote:
> >So "pet" is
> >[pEt] and "pate" is [pejt], and you can transcribe these phonemically as
> >/pEt/ and /pet/, or as /pet/ and /pejt/
>
> I'd rather think that the reason is that the vowel of English <pet> is
> halfway between IPA [e] and [E], so that it's hard to decide which one
> should be used. This is based on the assumption that [e] and [E]
> correspond
> to French /e/ and /E/ as in <chanterai> [Sa_~tRe] vs. <chanterais>
> [Sa_~tRE]
> (in conservative standard pronunciation).
English /e/ [ej] is not the "same" as French /e/ [e]; it is diphthongized.
English /E/ [E] is probably close to French /E/ [E]; it may or may not be
the "same".  For one thing, it's enunciated with less muscular tension in
the tongue, which is one reason why American phonemics considers it "lax".
What we call tense (the diphthongized vowels) and lax is generally
equivalent to the use of "close" and "open" in European languages, but those
terms refer mainly to tongue position, I think, not to muscular tension. In
English lax vowels (I, E, U), there may also be a difference in tongue-root
position (advanced or retracted, I'm not sure which).

Frankly I'm a little surprised you have trouble distinguishing the tense/lax
(or close/open) vowels of English-- unless I've mis-read, you are a German
speaker, and (standard) German is quite similar in that respect.
>
> The SAMPA doesn't offer the two options you mentioned, but rather /pet -
> peIt/ vs. /pEt - peIt/.
That's strictly the usage in describing the contrasts of English. Don't
confuse the letter used to symbolize a phoneme with its phonetic equivalent;
in English at least the two don't always correspond (depending on the system
used). And I won't even mention the disconnect between Engl. phonetics and
spelling....