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

Mark J. Reed wrote:

>TM> Well, whether a distinction is easy to hear or not depends on your
>TM> experiences.
>
>JMW> If by 'experiences' you mean 'languages you know', then I fully agree.
>
>TM> I find [e] and [I] pretty obvious, but [I] and [i] is beyond me...
>
>That surprises me coming from an English - or at least Down-Underish -
>speaker.  I suppose in your 'lect the distinction between "bit" and
>"beat" is solely one of length?
>
>
As I said, one's a diphthong, the other's a short vowel. There's also
the allophonic long vowel [I:], appears as the most common allophone of
/I@/, before some consonants (including & originally linking r). ([Ij@]
and [Ija] are the other two allophones which appear in other positions
according to the normal rule determining whether [a] or [@] appears,
which is mostly [a] before a pause and in recitation, [@] otherwise.)

I may or may not be able to distinguish them, but I *think* I have
trouble. When my Dutch-speaking rellies were speaking Dutch which
distinguished /i/ and /I/ by nothing but quality, I couldn't hear the
difference. (I think at the time I asked a question to the list of
whether ie and i represented the same sound or something similar... I
was told no, one's /i/, t'other's /I/.)

Perhaps the fact that fush-n-chup-itting New Zillenders thunk thet
Seedneysiders say Feesh-n-cheeps means something, but I dunno...



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