Re: IPA vowels

On Wed, Sep 13, 2000 at 04:42:56PM +0200, Kristian Jensen wrote:
[snip]
> In recent literature on phonology, there is a new category of vowel
> features involving the lips called "compression". Could it be that
> your so called "unrounded" vowels are what could be called "compress-
> lipped" (if such a term exists), and that your so called "stretched
> vowels" are plain unrounded?
Well, I found that I've mislabelled my vowel table. Roundedness isn't
really a parameter in the system; it's basically vertical and horizontal
aperture.

> For me, at least, the difference between plain and stretched lip vowels
> are so minimal that I can't really perceive them as distinctively useful
> in a human language.
Well, if no other parameters change, then the difference between plain and
stretched lip vowels may become negligible; however, remember that my
conlang's vowel system mainly has two dimensions: aperture and
"stretchedness". This means that a "stretched" vowel differs from an
unstretched vowel in more than one way, so the sounds are quite distinct.

> But if your language isn't spoken by humans, then maybe IPA doesn't apply
> now, does it? ;)
[snip]

Well, they are approximately humanoid beings :-) Or perhaps I should say,
they are humans but exist in a universe with rather different physical
laws...

Anyway, after some off-list discussion with some people who are
interested, I've roughly decided on the closest IPA symbols that represent
my 9-vowel system: (SAMPA is used for IPA symbols below)
        u = /u/         w = /}/ or /2/          y = /y/
        o = /o/         3 = /3/                 i = /i/
        0 = /O/         a = /a/ perhaps /A/     e = /E/ perhaps /{/


T