Re: How to Make Chicken Cacciatore (was: phonetics by guesswork)

J. 'Mach' Wust wrote:

>On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 19:48:47 +1000, Tristan Mc Leay <kesuari@...>
>wrote:
>
>
>
>>The original IPA vowels, though, were defined based on
>>the cardinal vowels, which were in turn based on the French vowels IIRC.
>>Since then, additional (central) vowels have been added. I have no idea
>>when [&] (a-e ligature), [I] or [U] (small caps I and U) were added, but
>>I suppose it was early on for English.)
>>
>>
>
>According to this, you'd have to learn a number of different languages (in
>their most conservative pronunciations!) until you'd master the IPA vowels,
>at least French and English.
>
>
No-no, I meant in the first place. I imagine that French vowels aren't
exactly standardised. That's just my understanding of why they chose to
have a symbol for [e], [E] and [i_"] ([I]), but not for the sound in
between [e] and [E] or [a_"].

>This way of defining the sounds seems to be the most practicable to me.
>Though it'd be kind of third-rate.
>
>========================================
>
>On Sat, 24 Jul 2004 00:13:49 +0100, And Rosta <a.rosta@...> wrote:
>
>
>
>>I presume the CVs ought to be definable in terms of relative formant
>>values, though if such a definition exists it is surprisingly elusive.
>>
>>
>
>The [s]cientific approach. My few experience with these kind of analysis tells
>me that it'd be extremely difficult to find the discriminations that are
>even difficult to hear, e.g. between [2] and [Y]. Also a third-rate.
>
>
Well, whether a distinction is easy to hear or not depends on your
experiences. I find [e] and [I] pretty obvious, but [I] and [i] is
beyond me... (If I talk of an /i(:)/ in my speech, it almost certainly
represents a diphthong starting somewhere between [i] and [@] and ending
somewhere round [i].) I don't imagine simply rounding the elements ruins
the human ear! (Babies can distinguish thousands of sounds. One aspect
of learning your first language(s) is *losing* the ability to
distinguish between them!)


--
| Tristan.               |       To be nobody-but-yourself in a world
| kesuari@yahoo!.com.au  |  which is doing its best to, night and day,
|                        |                 to make you everybody else---
|                        |          means to fight the hardest battle
|                        |            which any human being can fight;
|                        |                    and never stop fighting.
|                        |      --- E. E. Cummings, "A Miscellany"
|                        |
|                        |     In the fight between you and the world,
|                        |                             back the world.
|                        |      --- Franz Kafka,
|                        |         "RS's 1974 Expectation of Days"