Re: USAGE: Schwa and syllabification

[Still nomail]

On Fri, 12 Mar 2004 12:18:58 -0500, Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> wrote:

>On Fri, Mar 12, 2004 at 11:50:13AM -0500, Trebor Jung wrote:
>> Merhaba!
>>
>> My spelling textbook claims that the second syllable of 'little' has a
schwa
>> in it; my immediate reaction was "What? Isn't it [lItl=]?". So now I'm
>> wondering, how do you tell the difference between schwa and
syllabification?
>> (So for example is 'mechanic' [m@k&nIk] or [mk=&nIk]??)
>
>There's no such thing as a syllabic 'k' - only continuous sounds can be
>syllabic, which rules out stops.   You have to have some sort of
>sonorant between the m and the k.   Since m is itself a sonorant, you
>can extend it; then you get [m='k&nIk], which sounds like "mmm-kanik".
>But there's no way to extend the k into a syllable.
Well, I can drop just about any schwa from my speech if I feel like it, the
exception being mostly word-final (or ones pretending to be/pretending not
to be). When I do so, I still have three syllables in 'mechanic', and the
[m] is definitely an onset. The /k/ is probably [k_h:], and the syllable
boundary happens on it. I'm not sure what's syllabic then if it ain't
the /k/, because it sure ain't the /m/! (I'd investigate in Praat but for
the absence of a computer that records sound.)

>A genuine [@l] sounds different from [l=], but is a bit harder to
>pronounce IME.  The word "little" is phonemically /'lIt@l/, but the pair
>(schwa + sonorant) usually gets reduced to a syllabic sonorant in
>English, because it's easier to say.
*Cough* englishdoesnotexist *cough*
*couugh* sp-isareallyhardonset *cough*

>When you pronounce [@l] at
>anything close to normal speed, your mouth gets into position for the l
>early on, while you've theoretically just begun pronouncing the schwa.
>At full speed they collapse into a simultaneous articulation, and you get
>[l=].
--
Tristan