Re: New Try from a New Guy

On Sat, Dec 14, 2002 at 02:32:45PM -0800, Joseph Fatula wrote:
> >  > 1. Is it reasonable to have the diphthongs [aI], [OI], and [aU] even
> > though
> >  > I do not have  the individual sounds of [a], [O] or [U]?
> >
> > Yes.  American English has the diphthongs [aI], [aU], [eI], [oU]
> > but not [a], [e], [o] by themselves.
>
> All of a sudden I feel as though I've misunderstood SAMPA...
>
> Is the first vowel sound in American English "father" [a]?  The way that
> sounds normal to me doesn't seem to have any diphthongization at all.
Well, first of all, "American English" isn't a very precise designation.
The vowels in Texan are quite different from vowels in Boston, for
example. In Texas, the /a/ in "father" is probably closer to [&] whereas
in Boston it might be better described by [a]. In British English, it
sounds like [A], although that's just my (not-so-accurate) perception.

And don't worry about misunderstanding SAMPA (or any IPA vowel, for that
matter). Even up to now, I'm still not 100% clear on the "correct" values
of IPA vowels. :-) And one could argue that there isn't any "correct"
value anyway, since as I've pointed out earlier the non-peak IPA vowels
probably covers a small range of different sounds.


T

--
It's bad luck to be superstitious. -- YHL

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