Kristian Jensen wrote:
> >(1) The sound in school/cool/fool/tool is essentially
> > [w]. Therefore, if I take your description literally,
> > it is [u].
>
> Yes. At least in Brisbane.
I'm satisfied with this.
> >(2) The sound in could/book/wool/woman/ is similar to (1)
> and [w], but looser.
>
> Yes again. At least in Brisbane. Note though that the
> difference between (1) and (2) is that (1) is longer than
> (2). Similar but different.
You mean length is the root difference and tightness a
secondary (resultant) difference?
> >> For instance, words like "no/know" get rendered as
[no-y].
..
> >I'm quite certain my speech does not contain [o],
although
> >my singing voice does. When I sing, no/know are [no:].
When
> >I speak, they contain a diphthong that begins with a
> >neutralish vowel (perhaps [rounded-V]?) and ends with
vowel
> >#3 in my list above.
>
> YES YES!! This neutralish vowel is [o-], a mid central
> rounded vowel. Its like a rounded schwa but a bit more
> closed. And YES, it then ends with the same vowel in (3)
> above indeed.
So [o-] is not similar to [o] (to my ears, anyway). OK.
> Phoneme Australian American
> /u/ [u-y] [Uw]~[u:]
> /U/ [u] [U]
> /o/ [o-y] [ow]
> (where: [u-] and [o-] are centralized vowels)
These are for the words _moon_, _school_ and _code_,
respectively, right? And the IPA doesn't distinguish between
_school_/_could_? Aren't there any regular symbols to mean
"a little looser" / "a little tighter"?
The biggest problem I have with the above is that you've got
/u/ as a diphthong. Well, depending on what the previous
consonant is, there might indeed be a neutral vowel ([@]
AFAICT) emitted whilst the mouth moves from the consonant to
the /u/. For a consonant like 'm' from which the lips must
first move up before they move out, this is particularly
likely. But fundamentally, the Australian /u/ is not a
diphthong.
I listen to more British speech than American. Can you offer
the British pronunciations of these phonemes?
> What you need is a phonetician. Also, all universities
with
> a linguistics department ought to have recordings of
Daniel
> Jones reciting the cardinal vowels.
No linguistics department. Only a languages department. I
believe all the phoneticians are in the speech pathology and
audiology department in the school of medicine.
Adrian.