Re: New Try from a New Guy

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Michael David Martin <mdmartin@i...> wrote:
 > One observation I have related to this, is that the IPA chart
 > (http://www.ling.hf.ntnu.no/ipa/full/ipachart_vowels.html) doesn't have
 > representations for exactly my pronunciations. For example, I think
my [e]
 > is more open than the sound example given on this page.

There may be some confusion about the meaning of [e] here...  in your
last post, you mentioned having studied the American X-SAMPA page at
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/sampa/american.htm .

This page uses /e/ and /o/ to represent the phonemes "long a" and
"long o".  However, these two phonemes are pronounced as diphthongs
[eI] and [oU] in most dialects, so the phonemic representation
/e/, /o/ is a bit misleading.

Thus, when you listen to the [e] of the IPA page, you don't hear
the American phoneme /e/ (which actually sounds like [eI]), but the
pure vowel [e].  This might be why it sounds different from what
you expect.



-- Christian Thalmann

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