Re: Hear Me! Hear Me!

On Mon, 2002-06-24 at 18:22, Adrian Morgan wrote:
> It is known (I heard this factoid mentioned on the radio) that South
> Australians tend to slur their /l/s more than other Australians do, on
> average, e.g. rhyming "girl" with "smell". My _girl_ and _smell_ don't
> rhyme, but for other people around here they often do.
Yuck. That sounds very difficult.

> > I have been led to understand that the vowel in the word 'get' is /E/.
> [...]
> > /e/ is generally used to transcribe the sound in 'day' when used in
> > an English context.
>
> I'm confident that [e] is the vowel in 'get' and that [E] is the wider
> vowel. I'm just not confident about the boundaries between [E] and
> other vowels.
Could well be. I have no idea what the exact sound of the vowel I use
is, I've never heard them pronounced clearly enough.

> > Could be. I should note that my /{/ and your /&/ refer to the same
> > vowel.
>
> That's because you use pure SAMPA while I generally use the cross
> between SAMPA and Kirsch that is often used on this list. Probably
> confusing, but it was here that I picked it up.
Hmm... that debate is one best not entered into. I just decided to use
pure X-SAMPA some time ago lest it be started again.

> > I believe the vowel used in Australia for a 'long o' (i.e. the sound in
> > the name of the fourth vowel, that is, O) is [8u] (a rounded mid-high
> > vowel going off to [u] or [w] or some similar vowel). It's certainly
> > different from both the RP [@u] and the GA [ou] or [o:].
>
> My biggest long-running dispute with the IPA is that, as I understand
> it, [u] is equivalent to a syllabic [w=] whereas [u-] is the vowel in
> "do" or "through". I find it silly that such a distinct pair of vowels
> (certainly more distinct than [i] is from [I]) are distinguished only
> by a diacritic.
As far as the IPA is concerned, it isn't 'just a diacritic', but an
entire different character. I haven't been bothering with the
distinction though.

> I have no idea what [8] is, but you may well be right in that the "o"
> in "spoke" could well be [8u-].
It's represented by the o-with-bar, a rounded version of backwards e,
rounded mid-high vowel. Centre, in line with [e] and [o].

> > > For me, there is a rule that the "o" in "spoke":
> > > - cannot precede an /l/ in the same syllable,
> > > - but *can* precede an /l/ that is the start of the *next* syllable.
> >
> > I simply have one rule: [8u] cannot proceed /l/ in either the next or
> > the same syllable.
>
> In other words you only have the first half of my rule.
Phonetically, yes, phonemically no. The vowel is still preceived as the
same one. I don't know if that's what you mean.

> > To me, pronouncing 'coat' and 'coal' with the same vowel makes the
> > speaker sound British or American or something...
>
> Yes, agreed. I'd label this as British.
Ah ha! We agree on something! :)

> Well, I was taking about the phoneme represented by the "o" in that
> word, and was mostly ignoring the "l". Different realisations of /l/
> after a vowel are so subject to individual variations that I'm not
> going to attempt to generalise about them.
Oh, okay then. I was just going by your IPA of [gOud].

> > What vowel is [O] being used to represent here? The sound of the word
> > 'court' or 'cot' or 'coat' or 'coal'?
>
> "cot" = [kOt] and the vowel is also present in "coal".
> This is the transciption I am led to understand is correct.
Well, the Macquarie dictionary and most of the rest of what I've read
uses /Q/ (i.e. backwards script a). I use /Q/ for this on the grounds
that I understand /O:/ is the vowel in 'court' and the word 'gone' has a
long version of the vowel in 'cot' (but rhymes with neither 'born'
/bO:n/ nor the /tQn/-pronunciation of 'tonne'), so I can't very well use
the same vowel, i.e. /O:/, for it as I do in 'court'.

OTOH, it could be that everything is one notch up: as with before, I'm
uncertain as to the exact realisation of the vowels. BTW: what do you
use for the vowel in 'court'?

> > For me, both 'soul' and 'solo' have the same first vowel phonetically;
>
> Whereas for me they don't, and both variants are common. Presumably
> for you, "holy" and "wholly" sound identical? For me they are [h8u-li]
> and [hOuli] respectively.
Yes, they are, [hQuli] ~ /h8uli/ for both of them. 'Holly' is pronounced
/hQli/, though.

> > Also, is the vowel in 'school' for you more like a long version of 'put'
> > or the vowel of 'moot'? (For me, the former.)
>
> Like 'put' only tighter (i.e. pure [u] I'd say); my voice sample
> demonstrates this vowel with the word "foolish". I associate this
> pronunciation with Adelaide, and the 'moot' alternative with Sydney.
Okay. I can't hear the recorded sounds too well. And the presence of the
vowel afterwards could've alter the pronunciation, anyway. For me, it's
exactly identical to the vowel in 'put' but longer; I have no idea of
the exact quality of this vowel.

Tristan.