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Re: CHAT: reduced vowels in English (was: -i/yse vs -i/yze in England)

From:Tristan Alexander McLeay <anstouh@...>
Date:Tuesday, December 18, 2001, 11:18
On Sun, 16 Dec 2001, Anton Sherwood wrote:

> > > Tristan Alexander McLeay wrote: > > > > Any (semi-)official publication will *definately* use the -ise > > > > spellings. > > > Irina Rempt wrote: > > > And it will definitely use "definitely" :-) > > Tristan Alexander McLeay wrote: > > All I can say to that is `Damn schwa'. > > Not all dialects equate all reduced vowels. I *think* that my schwa in > these two words would be /E/- and /I/-colored respectively, but maybe > I'm only hearing what I want to hear. (I only recently noticed that I > say /@j, @w/ at least sometimes.)
Yes, I know, but my dialect does, quite vigourously (the only remaining vowels in unstressed syllables being an /I/ before syllable final /k/ (critic), /g/ (eg?), /N/ (running), /S/ (English), /tS/ (Greenwich),* /dZ/ (baggage). In theory, /Z/ could support an /I/. I'm not sure whether words ending in -/Iv/ have stress there, but for the sake of niceness, I've left it like that. (Of course, you have to be grateful for my remembering the completely silent -i- in that... after all, I could've spelt in `defnatly'... (God that's ugly)). * For some in non-place names, this becomes /IdZ/: `sandwich' /s{:mwIdZ/
> This relates* to my main gr@jp about the new Oxford English Dictionary. > The old one used something like a "diaphonic" notation, which shows a > phonemic distinction if any dialect makes it, never mind if some > dialects pronounce two or more symbols alike. The new dictionary shows > the standard dialect in IPA -- making it a Dictionary of Oxford English.
That doesn't sound very fun at all... Although I think the only distinction I have that RP doesn't (always) do is /u@/ after (historic /j/, except in `sure') (but we both merge other /U@/s onto /O:/).
> * retlates? restlates?
Typos? Tristan