Eric Christopherson wrote:
>>
>> The first one is a dental fricative. The second one is an interdental
>> fricative. They are not known to be contrastive, so both are represented
>> in the IPA by symbols representing dental fricatives (eg. theta or eth).
>> But since languages that have them consistently uses one or the other, it
>> is possible in the IPA to represent the second one with a 'subscript plus'
>> in phonetic transcription.
>
>Hmm, neither of them is the same as the way I form a dental fricative (i.e.
>with the tongue blade against the top front teeth). There's no more specific
>way to notate that?
Hunh? But you described both of the sounds above as having
tongue against the upper teeth, no?
>Also on the subject of notation, is there a way to write
>[t] so that it's unambiguously seen as either alveolar or postalveolar? I
>see that there's a "dental" diacritic, but none for those two (I've been
>using the retraction diacritic for postalveolar).
I'd also use the retraction diacritic (subscript minus).
>>
>[snip]
>> these vowels is fairly obvious. While the retraction of these vowels
>> can be seen when comparing where the narrowest constriction is in [u]
>> and [O]; the narrowest constriction in [u] is in the velar (and labial)
>> area, in [O] it is in the uvular area. I'm not too sure about the process
>> of retraction with [i]>[E], though.
>
>So is [O] actually farther back than [u]?
Yes.
>I thought all the back vowels had
>about the same degree of "backedness;" at least that's what the IPA chart's
>arrangement of them would have one believe.
The chart is only an approximate mapping of the vowel space.
The vowel space is afterall 3-dimensional and it is difficult
to represent it on 2-dimensional paper. Its like projecting the
globe on a piece of paper -- distortions are bound to occur.
I wonder if anyone has created the phonetician's equivalent
of a cartographer's globe -- a 3-dimensional projection of
the vowel space. That could be a very useful tool for
conlangers.
-kristian- 8)