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

I've tried to collect the different solutions to define the IPA vowels that
have been posted recently.


On Wed, 21 Jul 2004 10:47:27 -0400, John Cowan <jcowan@...> wrote:

>Traditionally, the cardinal vowels are learned by one phoneticist from
>another, and when you use them in formal scholarly print, you ought to name
>the person you learned them from, so that a known source of bias can be
>corrected for.
According to this, the interpretation of the IPA vowels could indeed vary
according to scholarly tradition.

But where to get lessons by a phoneticist? At the university, this wasn't
made but very very superficially. So I'm essentially third-rate, too.

I don't remember any phonetic paper whose author'd indicate the person who
teached them the IPA vowels (I might be wrong), though of course, they
generally mention their teachers.

>Learning them from sound recordings is considered second-rate; from
>books, third-rate.
========================================

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.

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 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.

>when as a bright-eyed undergraduate I asked the
>same question as J. 'Mach' Wust, I was given the answer that
>phonograph recordings of the CVs made by Daniel Jones served as
>the ultimate definition.
Authority decides. Mostly second-rate. I think that this'd be quite
practicable as well, but only if these recordings were easily available.


g_0ry@_ˆs:
j. 'mach' wust

Reply