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

On Sat, 24 Jul 2004 20:16:08 -0400, Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> wrote:

>JMW> :) To me, [I] and [i] is pretty obvious, whereas the difference
>JMW> between [I] and a French or German /e/ is beyond me.
>
>Well, "the difference between [I] and /e/" is not a meaningful phrase;
>[I] could very well be the realization of /e/ in some 'lect of French or
>German.  You're mixing apples and oranges. :)
>
>If you mean the difference between [I] and [e], then I think that's
>strange; it seems like a much clearer distinction than [I]/[i] or
>[E]/[e] or even [I]/[E].
I'm sorry. Yes I meant the former: [I] as in RP/GA |bit| or German |bitte|
vs. [e] as in German |bete| or in French |chantez| (thanks to Philip Caquant
for this example). I don't notice any difference between the vowels of the
stressed first syllables of |bitte| and |bete| but a difference in length. I
know there is the distinction called 'lax - tense', 'open - close', or
'sharp cut - smooth cut', but I don't know how people should notice that
distinction or even realize it.

>JMW> Of course, the sign of [e] could
>JMW> rather represent the vowel of English <pet> (which I perceive clearly
>JMW> different from [I] and from [E])
>
>In my 'lect of English (and in 'Murkin generally, though of course
>not all 'Murkin dialects), the vowel of |pet| is exactly [E]. I think
>that is true of RP as well.  So I'm confused - in what variety of
>English is the vowel of |pet| clearly different from [E]?  I thought
>most Englishes had [E].  They might be missing [e], realizing /e/ as
>[E:] or [Ej], rather than (as in my 'lect) [ej], but I hadn't heard of
>an [E]-less English.
I didn't say that this contrast existed in English, though thanks to Paul
Bennett we now have an example of it in modern RP, and we might almost
construct a minimal pair: |haired| [hE:d] vs. |head| [hed].

I was only saying that the sound of English |pet| is closer than the sound
of French |chantais|, German |Räder|, which are both usually represented as
[E] (and pretty much identical).

On the other hand, the sound of French |chantez| and German |Reeder| is also
closer than the sound of English |pet|. Furthermore, I don't notice any
difference, as said above, between the sounds of |chantez, Reeder| and [I].
So if I could decide, I'd assign the IPA vowels in the following manner to
educated standard pronunciation:

I: RP, GA |bit|, German |bitte, bete, Reeder|, French |chantez|
e: RP, GA |bet, bed|, Bärndütsch |Bett, Beet|
E: German |Räder, Bett|, French |chantais|, modern RP |hair|

>in a study of well-educated,
>well-prepared and well-practiced Japanese adults, the vast, vast
>majority, in the vicinity of 99% IIRC, could not hear the change when a
>speaker slowly and carefully went from saying [la la la la] to saying
>[r\a r\a r\a r\a].
Oh, thanks a lot, I'm very willing to believe this at once! (Please don't
read any irony.)

g_0ry@_ˆs:
j. 'mach' wust

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