Re: The fourteen vowels of English?

Mark P. Line wrote:
> Paul Bennett said:
> > Well, I decided to measure my own lect, and got some surprising results.
> > I
> > have at least 17 vowels that I can think of, all of which can appear
> > between /h/ and /d/...
>
> You might consider the possibility that some of your examples contain an
> /r/.
>
That's always the problem when our non-rhotic friends speak up.... I myself
count 15, of which 3 are low-hi dipthongs, and 1 /ju/ is of uncertain
status--

heed /i/
hid /I/
hayed, "heyed" /e/
head /E/
had /&/
HUD /V/ or /@/ (just one phoneme, stressed [V] ~[3] before [r\], unstressed
[@])
who'd /u/
hood /U/
hoed /o/
"hawed" sawed /O/
hod /a/ or /A/-- depends which version of IPA you listen to :-(

hide /aj/
"howed" loud /aw/
"hoyed" toyed /oj/
"hewed" huge /ju/

There are more diphthongs if you view the tense vowels /i e u o/ as /ij, ej,
uw, ow/, as classical US phonemics does.

And 16 if you view [3^] = /@r\/ as a single vocalic nucleus in stressed
syllables (herd, heard), but again, this get into the "r" problem.

And John Cowan wrote:
> Joe scripsit:
> > >I guess you merge the sounds of "war" and "door"?
> >
> > Almost everyone does.  And that of 'pour'.
>
> Even I, firmly rhotic, merge all of these:  [wOr\], [dOr\], [pOr\].
> However, 'pour' [pOr\] and 'poor' [pur\] remain firmly separate,
> and I don't know of any rhotic dialect that merges them.
Me raises hand.  Pour, poor [pUr\] vs. [wOr\] [dOr\] -- all have a slight
[@] glide between the vowel and r.

The beer is also [k_hUr\z] 'Coor's'

YAEPT off and running..................