Re: Not phonetic but ___???

On Apr 15, 2004, at 11:26 AM, Joe wrote:
> Indeed.  But you need to represent every single phoneme in every
> single(widespread, native) dialect.  That is the nature of the quest.
> So, while, essentially, taking a referent dialect(probably British
> English, if I was doing it), you would have to add symbols for the
> disctinction between the sounds in <car>, <father>, and <grass>, even
> though there is none in my dialect.  If you were taking an American
> dialect, you'd have to represent the difference between the vowel in
> <grass> and that in <hat>, though there is no distinction in American
> English, there is in some dialects of British English and New Zealand
> English(I believe).  That's the only example I know first hand.  It is
> by no means an impossibility to construct a dialect-neutral, phonemic
> orthography.
English Pronunciation Thread Alert:

In the New York City area, "grass" is [gr\e@s] and "hat" is [h&t].
Two separate vowels, the diphthong [e@] and the purer [&], whose
complicated relationship has been dealt with multiple times on Conlang
(although sometimes i forget). :)


-Stephen (Steg)
  "khagaang gaur, sha'sem-a tze-a amzu'nyih-dashek -
   kha eze'nyih-dashek amsh"

Reply