Re: 3 Phonetics-Related Q's

I.K. Peylough wrote:

> On Sat, 14 Aug 2004 21:42:18 -0700, Garth Wallace > wrote:
>
> >Carsten Becker wrote:
> >
> >> 2.   Why is the [r\] at the end of words (American English) often
> >> transcribed as [@`] in dictionaries? Where is the difference?
There is no difference.  ( )SAMPA [@r\] _is_ IPA [@^] (schwa with hook).
Some dictionaries use the IPA symbol; others have other strategies, such as
italicized _er_. That has the advantage that non-rhotic speakers can simply
ignore the "r"...


I know the
> >> little hook i sf ro indicating rhoticity -- are there other
> >> vowels/consonants/sounds in general that can be rhoticized?
> >
> >Any vowel can be rhoticized. If you try to pronounce the English word
> >"ear" (as in rhotic dialects) as a single segment, you end up with
> >something like /i`/ or maybe /I`/. It involves forming a channel in the
> >middle of the tongue and retracting the tongue root, I think.
>
> I thought rhotacizing involved turning the tongue tip up.
Yes, tongue tip up (at least a little) plus what Garth said. IMO American
[@^] (or call it syllabic r) is our only real retroflexed vowel (i.e. a
single articulatory motion); the other vowel+r combos are actually
diphthongs-- vowel + @^ offglide-- which, if you draw them out, become two
syllables.

I'd guess that true retroflexed vowels occur (allophonically) in Indic
languages, preceding the retroflexed consonants.

As a child, I learned a silly joke/story about a lion named Herbert, the
main feature of which involved firmly planting the tongue tip behind the
lower teeth, and then talking.  Everything comes out quite weird, but
especially the r's, which of course lack the retroflexion-- it makes one
sound rather British (=silly, in the estimation of US kids, maybe?). Anyway,
the punch line was "Herbert had burped" ["h3:b3t h&d 'b3:pt] (the [t] in
Herbert is either unreleased, or more likely [?]).

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