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

John Cowan:
> J. 'Mach' Wust scripsit:
>
> > Does anybody know if there's a more exact definition of the cardinal
> > vowels? The authority of John Wells?
>
> 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.  Learning them from sound recordings is considered
> second-rate; from books, third-rate.
>
> (I am by these standards a third-rate person, I hasten to add.)
I presume the CVs ought to be definable in terms of relative formant
values, though if such a definition exists it is surprisingly elusive.

I too am essentially a third-rate person, even though I was taught
by Wells who was taught by Gimson who was taught by Daniel Jones
(but that was because by my time the two halves of the department
of Phonetics and Linguistics had very little to do with each
other). Anyway, 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. (The recordings never played a part in
any of my lessons, but I would never make great claims for the
pedagogical efficacy of my undergraduate education.)

--And.