Re: English notation

>===== Original Message From cinga@GMX.NET =====
>Tom Tadfor Little wrote:
>
>> I say /i:NglIS/ (remember we were conflating N with Ng)
>
>I'm confused.  I've never heard that pronunciation from any native
>speaker -- although I know some Brazilian and Russian language students
>who sound a leetel like this.  ;-)
>
>I tried that several times and I find myself sounding goofy.  /INlIS/,
>on the other hand, flows off the tongue nicely and effortlessly.  I seem
>to dwell on the /N/ rather than the /i/.
Huh.  I actually find it impossible to say [IN] in 'English'..  [IN] doesn't
exist in my native speech at all.  (I _can_ pronounce it, but it's just as a
'foreign sound'.)

[N] after front vowels either is not the same as the [N] after, say, [V] in
"rung"--it's assimilated to the vowel, producing something closer to [i:JglIS]
(where [J] = palatal nasal).  [Is there any way to mark the nasal between the
palatal and the velar?]

Same goes for the many words ending in -ing.   <sing> is absolutely not [sIN]
(even if it may be /sIN/ phonemically).  (But that may just be me, as two
people next to me I just asked have [I] in -ing, .)

>> most non-phoneticians
>> would probably tell you that "English" and "rely" both have a "long E".
>
>Even an average American, who knows as good as nothing about
>linguistics, would have to realize after some contemplation that the
>sound in "English" is the same as in "bin": a short, lax /I/.
The second vowel, surely ;p

     *Muke!

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