Re: General phonetics // was "Newbie"

Roger Mills wrote:

> (Tristan:)
Adrian, actually. We may be in the same country but that's no reason to
confuse us :-)

> > >    The words 'hut' and 'heart', for example, are distinguised only by
> > >    the duration of the 'ah' sound.
> >
> > In what dialect of English is the vowel of <hut> the same as the vowel
> > of <heart>?
>
> Australian, evidently.  This took me aback too, until I reminded myself of
> Tristan's nationality :-)).  Apparently "hut" is something like [h6t], so
And, more pertinently, my nationality.

> "heart" must be [h6:t].  Personally I'd have to hear it before I'd believe
> it, but as Don Quixote often said, en este mundo maravilloso, todo puede
> ser.  My understanding is that in RP, the vowels would be different, [h6t]
> vs. [hA:t] maybe??? (details open to correction) -- and as you point out,
> quite different in Merkin, rhotic or not.
Whether one uses [a] or [6] depends upon whether one wishes to
emphasise that it is an open vowel or a central vowel. As we know, it
is traditional to use [a] for the central open vowel, but it makes at
least as much sense to use [6], and there are good arguments for why
the centrality of the vowel should be emphasised.

In RP and similar British dialects, the distance between the vowels in
'hut' and 'heart' varies, depending on idiolect and so on, but IME
it's not uncommon for them to be indistinguishable, and I've discussed
this with British speakers who also find them indistinguishable (aside
from length, of course). The average distance between the vowels in RP
English is shown in the Mannell reference that I gave.

> Also relevant:  one of his sources was R. Mannell, "The vowels of Australian
> English..."
Indeed. With RP being included under "... and other English dialects".

> > >    (vowels are typically shortened in English
> > >    when followed by an unvoiced consnant).
> >
> > I thought it was that they were lengthened when
> > followed by a voiced consonant.  Guess it all depends on your point
> > of view. :)
> >
> Perhaps he should have written "shorter".......?
'Shortened' is definitely more appropriate than 'lengthened', I'd say,
for the following reason. 'Shorter' is probably better still, though.
Consider the length of '&' in various words. Here's a sample:

  pad (short)
  bad (long)
  pat (short)
  bat (short)

The length before a voiced consonant is irregular (thus 'pad' is short
whilst 'bad' is long) while the length before an unvoiced consonant is
regular (e.g. 'pat' and 'bat' are both short). This shows that the
regularity is imposed by the unvoiced consonant, whereas the voiced
consonant does not impose a regularity.

> Aside from these minor quibbles, it was a quite well done explanation.
The main quibble being that I didn't explicitely state which dialect
I was talking about. Fair enough.

Adrian.

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