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Re: The fourteen vowels of English?

From:Thomas R. Wier <trwier@...>
Date:Saturday, September 11, 2004, 14:19
From:    Trebor Jung <treborjung@...>
> Well, here's my 'lect's vocalic inventory (including diphthongs): > > heed /i/ ; *heared /ir\/ [Is there such a word at all??] ; hid /I/; > head /E/ ; haired /Er\/ [Is that even a word??]
Yes: as in "brown-haired"
> had /&/ ; heard, herd /r\=/ ; hawed /A/; hard /Ar\/; HUD /V/ > [Would anyone be so kind as to look through their dictionary to see > if there are any words [hVd]?]
Besides the American federal bureacracy of that name already mentioned, I seem to recall reading of an obscure term for the skin of a peanut spelled and pronounced this way.
> A quick question: I've seen /EI)/, e.g., as well as /Ej)/. Is there > a difference?
It depends on the language and at what level of organization you're speaking. There are languages which have palatal glides like /j/ which nonetheless treat such an offglide phonemically as /i/. So, do as you see fit. ----------------------------------------------------------- From: Steven Williams
> I have a funny little split I noticed in my dialect > (standard American, mild Southern influence). In > certain words, I pronounce [&] something like [&@], > and in others, it's straight [&]. Examples: > > /man/ [m&@n] (or [mn=] in compounds where it's > unstressed) > /fare/ [f&r\] or [fEr\] > /nab/ [n&@b] > /nap/ [n&p] > /hang/ [h&N] or [hEN] > /nag/ [n&@g] > /had/ [h&@d] > /has/ [h&z] > /ham/ [h&@m]
[...]
> Anyone else have this speech characteristic? It's very > common around where I live (central Florida) and seems > to be just a general American phonetic phenomenon.
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.) ========================================================================= Thomas Wier "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally, Dept. of Linguistics because our secret police don't get it right University of Chicago half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of 1010 E. 59th Street Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter. Chicago, IL 60637

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Steven Williams <feurieaux@...>