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

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