Re: Phoneme winnowing continues

MJR = Mark J. Reed (me)
CG  = Christopher "Not Grandpa" Grandsire

MJR> Okay, I'll buy the nasals, but I don't understand what you mean by
MJR> "truly pronounces long vowels as long vowels".  What is the phonetic
MJR> difference between [to:] and [too]?

CG> One is two phones, the other three. Tell me, you can make the difference
CG> between a long vowel and a sequence of two identical short vowels can't
CG> you?

Well, yes, but the difference is either:

1. intonation - the second syllable comes out at a lower pitch than the first

2. a glottal stop between them

3. neither of the above becuase the vowel is a diphthong.  For instance,
   in "go over", since English long "o" is a diphthong, simply resetting
   to the start of the sound between the two "o"s makes an audible break -
   almost a w, as in [gouwouv@`r].

MJR> Is there also a discernible difference between [mAk:A] and [mAkkA]?

CG> In the absolute? Yes. [k:], again, is a single phone (kept longer), while
CG> [kk] is two.

Okay, when I try to make that distinction I get [mAk:A] vs. [mAk::A]
or [mAk@kA], with a very short [@] in the last example.

I can believe in a phonemic value for syllables, but phonetically
it seems they have to be realized by something like the above
mechanisms.  In a phonetic transcription I don't know what [.] means.

-Mark

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