Re: The fourteen vowels of English?

 --- "Thomas R. Wier" <trwier@...> schrieb:

> These features are very common in most Southern
> American
> dialects.  In my dialect, as in many Southern ones,
> all
> front vowels are raised before nasals, as well as
> before
> /r/, which explains the distribution you see here.
> In
> all English dialects of which I'm aware, vowels are
> slightly
> lengthened before voiced consonants, which explains
> your
> pronunciation of "nab".  The fact that, unlike many
> Southern
> dialects, you do not lengthen the vowel in all
> monosyllabic
> words as you do not in "nap", suggests to me that
> maybe
> these aren't precisely schwas you're saying, but
> just mainly
> the vowel length. (I'd have to hear myself to be
> sure.)
You're right; they're not quite schwas. They're
probably some sort of offglide. But I do lengthen
vowels before voiced consonants and nasals, which
explains the allophonic variation of [&]. Similar
variations exist with other vowels, like [i] sounding
more like [iI] in those environments. Just some sort
of indeterminate offglide, then.

It would be interesting to make an English-based
conlang that resulted in the devoicing of final
consonants, so we get back a true vowel-length
distinction (but knowing English phonology, the
vowels'll probably shift as well).


	

	
		
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