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Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2007marry merry mary
Is there no similar case of divergence/ convergence of high front vowels and diphthongs? How about: the pre <r> e's in cereal, serious and seer? > Is there no similar case of divergence/ convergence of high front > vowels and diphthongs? How about: the pre <r> e's in cereal, serious > and seer? People have fun with the "merry, Mary, marry" thing because they're homophones for some speakers. "Cereal", "serious", and "seer" don't have that charm, but wouldn't "sear", "sere", and "seer" do better to make your point? They're homophones for me. They're also homophones for the _New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary_ (_NSOED_), except for a variant pronunciation of "seer" in one sense: sear /sI<schwa>/ v. sere /sI<schwa>/ a. seer /sI<schwa>, in sense 2 also "si:<schwa>/ n.1 2 gen. A person who sees. (Foll. by of the thing seen.) Cf. SEE-ER. LME. But your "serious", "cereal", and "seer" also have the vowel of "pig" in _NSOED_, again except for the variant, one-sense pronunciation of "seer". serious /"sI<schwa>rI<schwa>s/ a. cereal /"sI<schwa>rI<schwa>l/ a. & n. seer /sI<schwa>, in sense 2 also "si:<schwa>/ n.1 So, I would turn your question around and ask if there are speakers for whom "seer" is not "sere" is not "sear", or for whom "serious", "cereal", and "seer" have difference vowels before the "r" sound. And if there are such speakers, do they represent a divergence, as opposed to a convergence for those who don't distinguish the three vowels? Incidentally, for what it's worth if anything, there's also a "seir" in _NSOED_, and it also has the "i" of "pig": seir /"sI<schwa>/ n. Also seer. E18. [...] In full seir-fish. A game-fish of the tropical Indo-Pacific, Scomberomorus commerson, of the family Scombridae. Also called serra. (I noticed too late that I had crossposted to sci.lang. I normally avoid posting to that group in order to avoid the annoying but senseless vitriolic outbursts of the muddle-headed Pee Dirty Daniels. I'm crossposting this because it's a follow-up posting, but I'll try to remember to restrict any further postings by me in the thread to alt.usage.english.) > > Is there no similar case of divergence/ convergence of high front > > vowels and diphthongs? How about: the pre <r> e's in cereal, serious > > and seer? > People have fun with the "merry, Mary, marry" thing because > they're homophones for some speakers. "Cereal", "serious", > and "seer" don't have that charm, but wouldn't "sear", > "sere", and "seer" do better to make your point? > They're homophones for me. They're also homophones for the > _New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary_ (_NSOED_), except > for a variant pronunciation of "seer" in one sense: > sear /sI<schwa>/ v. > sere /sI<schwa>/ a. > seer /sI<schwa>, in sense 2 also "si:<schwa>/ n.1 > 2 gen. A person who sees. (Foll. by of the > thing seen.) Cf. SEE-ER. LME. > But your "serious", "cereal", and "seer" also have the vowel > of "pig" in _NSOED_, again except for the variant, one-sense > pronunciation of "seer". > serious /"sI<schwa>rI<schwa>s/ a. > cereal /"sI<schwa>rI<schwa>l/ a. & n. > seer /sI<schwa>, in sense 2 also "si:<schwa>/ n.1 > So, I would turn your question around and ask if there are > speakers for whom "seer" is not "sere" is not "sear", or for > whom "serious", "cereal", and "seer" have [*]difference[*] vowels > before the "r" sound. And if there are such speakers, do > they represent a divergence, as opposed to a convergence for > those who don't distinguish the three vowels? * different I might have added that _Merriam-Webster's Unabridged Dictionary_ also has the same vowel in "serious", "cereal", and "seer", again except for the one-sense variant pronunciation of "seer". Again, are there divergers? > (I noticed too late that I had crossposted to sci.lang. I > normally avoid posting to that group in order to avoid the [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > to restrict any further postings by me in the thread to > alt.usage.english.) What an obnoxious a.shole. Does the senility now kick in in alternate postings? > I might have added that _Merriam-Webster's Unabridged > Dictionary_ also has the same vowel in "serious", "cereal", > and "seer", again except for the one-sense variant > pronunciation of "seer". > > Again, are there divergers? What is this "one-sence variant pronunciation"? One who sees is the same word as sybil. ... > > I might have added that _Merriam-Webster's Unabridged > > Dictionary_ also has the same vowel in "serious", "cereal", [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > What is this "one-sence variant pronunciation"? One who sees is the > same word as sybil. The AHD disagrees with you (and M-W) as far as pronunciation is concerned. It gives only one pronunciation for the prophet (same as "sere") and only one pronunciation for one who sees ("see-er"). That's how I pronounce them, by the way.  SignatureJerry Friedman >(I noticed too late that I had crossposted to sci.lang. I >normally avoid posting to that group in order to avoid the [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >to restrict any further postings by me in the thread to >alt.usage.english.) Thanks. I'll stay in sci.lang then and out of aue. Doug SignatureDoug Weller -- A Director and Moderator of The Hall of Ma'at http://www.hallofmaat.com Doug's Archaeology Site: http://www.ramtops.co.uk Amun - co-owner/co-moderator http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Amun/ > > Is there no similar case of divergence/ convergence of high front > > vowels and diphthongs? How about: the pre <r> e's in cereal, serious [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > and "seer" don't have that charm, but wouldn't "sear", > "sere", and "seer" do better No, because I've never heard the 2nd and rarely heard the 3rd. > to make your point? It's not a point; it's a question. I can find plenty of data on marry, merry & mary across English dialects but no concise comparisons of high front vowels and diphthongs across dialects, hence the question. > But your "serious", "cereal", and "seer" In my higher and lower registers, I have: serious /sj@:*I@s/ /si:*i@s/ cereal /sii"*I@l/ /si:*I@l/ seer /si:@/ /si:r/ > _NSOED_ > serious /"sI<schwa>rI<schwa>s/ a. > cereal /"sI<schwa>rI<schwa>l/ a. & n. > seer /sI<schwa>, in sense 2 also "si:<schwa>/ n.1 > So, I would turn your question around and ask if there are > speakers for whom "seer" is not "sere" is not "sear", or for > whom "serious", "cereal", and "seer" have difference vowels > before the "r" sound. And if there are such speakers, do > they represent a divergence, as opposed to a convergence for > those who don't distinguish the three vowels? Excellent; you asked it for me. [...] > So, I would turn your question around and ask if there are > speakers for whom "seer" is not "sere" is not "sear", or for > whom "serious", "cereal", and "seer" have difference vowels > before the "r" sound. And if there are such speakers, do > they represent a divergence, as opposed to a convergence for > those who don't distinguish the three vowels? Until I read this thread, I'd have been in the group for whom "seer" is not "sere". I may still be in that group. I can't remember ever noticing the pronunciation of the "soothsayer"-type version, but as a reader, I wouldn't have considered the possibility. One who sees and one who foresees are both see-ers to me, and that's how I would have pronounced it. The vowel I have in "serious" and "cereal" is the same as in "Sirius". When I listen to the recorded voices in my Random House UD CD, I can't really distinguish any difference in the vowel sounds (for "Sirius" and "serious"), though the transcriptions are different. The same is true for the recordings in the on-line Bartleby's version (based on The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.). Does anyone make out a distinction? Or let me ask it this way: if a speaker were to swap the pronunciations heard for each word, would anyone notice? Signaturerzed > [...] > [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > a speaker were to swap the pronunciations heard for each word, > would anyone notice? I have [sI*I@s] and [sj@:*I@s] (or [si:*I@s] in my lower register); I'd notice if a speaker made the vowel/ vocalic/ diphthong (whichever of these the speaker has) long in the first or short in the second. > [...] > [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > a speaker were to swap the pronunciations heard for each word, > would anyone notice? I certainly do, and would. "sirius" has /sIr-/, while "serious" and "cereal" and "serial" etc all have /si:r-/. The same contrast as in "bid" and "bead". John. > > Does anyone make out a distinction? Or let me ask it this way: if > > a speaker were to swap the pronunciations heard for each word, [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > "cereal" and "serial" etc all have /si:r-/. The same contrast as in > "bid" and "bead". Them Brits over at rec.puzzles.crossword were astonished that my Sirius and serious are identical, while my cereal goes with their Sirius. On 4 Jan 2007 20:52:54 -0800, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote in <news:1167972773.949243.43240@38g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> in alt.usage.english,sci.lang: >>> Does anyone make out a distinction? Or let me ask it this way: if >>> a speaker were to swap the pronunciations heard for each word, >>> would anyone notice? >> I certainly do, and would. "sirius" has /sIr-/, while "serious" and >> "cereal" and "serial" etc all have /si:r-/. The same contrast as in >> "bid" and "bead". > Them Brits over at rec.puzzles.crossword were astonished that my Sirius > and serious are identical, while my cereal goes with their Sirius. Not surprising: OED(1989) gives (I@) for 'serious' and 'cereal', (I) for 'Sirius'. AHD3 allows for but does not insist on the distinction: it gives /I/ for 'Sirius', but for the others it uses i-circumflex, which is used only before /r/ and is defined as the vowel of 'pier', which it says may be either /I/ or /i/. M-W OnLine makes them all the same, with /I/. Brian > On 4 Jan 2007 20:52:54 -0800, "Peter T. Daniels" > <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote in [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > > Brian For me, none of these words has /i/, they all have /I/. But 'serious' and 'cereal' have long /I:/. No, I don't mean the diphthong /I@/ - as far as I can tell I hold the vowel unchanged until the /r/ comes along. Until I analysed it, I would have said it was the same as 'pier', but it isn't: that's /I@/. I think it only occurs before /r/ (not <r>). It's also in 'hearing'. Colin "Colin Fine" <news@kindness.demon.co.uk> wrote... >>>>> Does anyone make out a distinction? Or let me ask it this way: if >>>>> a speaker were to swap the pronunciations heard for each word, [quoted text clipped - 28 lines] > it isn't: that's /I@/. I think it only occurs before /r/ (not <r>). > It's also in 'hearing'. Yes, I have that distinction too, just barely. <Hearing> is [hi:@rIN], while <serious> is [si:riUs]. I'm uncertain as to whether this is a phonemic distinction, or whether its subphonemic and caused by the obvious morpheme break in the first one. (Something like the two seers, which, however, I would definitely class as "different" because one has an extra syllable.) Does this make sense? IANAPh! OTOH, <pier>, like all such words, has /i:@/, the same as both <hear> and <hearing>, for me. John. "John Atkinson" <johnacko@bigpond.com> wrote... > "Colin Fine" <news@kindness.demon.co.uk> wrote... > [quoted text clipped - 37 lines] > two seers, which, however, I would definitely class as "different" > because one has an extra syllable.) Does this make sense? IANAPh! On further thought, I'm now convinced that <serious> is phonemically /si:@ri:Vs/ for me, even though the shwa is less apparent to my inner ear than it is in <hearing> /hi:@rIN/. My evidence, such as it is: (1) <earring> and <hearing> are exact rhymes (except for the somewhat different stress pattern). (2) The vowel in <keyring> (which indisputably is /ki:rIN/) is completely different from that in <serious> -- much more different than than the latter is from <hearing> and <earring> Unlike ranjit, I'm not into introducing new phonemes just to account for minor differences in pronunciation which have little or no functional load. /i:/ and /i:@/ and /I/ are indisputably different (<me> vs <mere> vs <mirror>), but there's no reason (in my dialect) to have more these three distinctions in the words under discussion in this thread. And I'm quite happy that <hear>, <hearing> and <serious> all have the same phoneme (or phoneme pair?) /i:@/, even though the shwa in the first is more pronounced in my speech than that in the second, which in turn is more pronounced than in the third. John. > "John Atkinson" <johnacko@bigpond.com> wrote... > > Yes, I have that distinction too, just barely. <Hearing> is > > [hi:@rIN], while <serious> is [si:riUs]. I'm uncertain as to whether [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > more pronounced in my speech than that in the second, which in turn is > more pronounced than in the third. So far, you claim three phonemic syllabic nuclei /I/ /i:/ /i:@/ The existence of these necessarily implies the existence of at least two others: /i/ /i@/ Can you give examples of your five-way contrast? Or better, you may revise your three _notations_ to /i/ /i:/ /i@/ to account for your three-way contrast. (These are, of course, notational variants of the Smith-Trager /i/. /iy/, /ih/ respectively.) *** "Earring" and "hearing" sound very different because of the morpheme-boundary-induced stress difference! For one thing, the former has a long r. "Keyring" differs from "earring" because it has a short r. "Serious" is the same as "hearing." Wa apparently agree, against most of the group, on [I] in "mirror." On 6 Jan 2007 16:39:28 -0800, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote in <news:1168130368.494930.65540@51g2000cwl.googlegroups.com> in alt.usage.english,sci.lang: [...] > So far, you claim three phonemic syllabic nuclei > /I/ > /i:/ > /i:@/ > The existence of these necessarily implies the existence of at least > two others: > /i/ > /i@/ Depends on the type of analysis. Gimson has /I/ and /i:/ but no /i/. [...] Brian "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote... >> "John Atkinson" <johnacko@bigpond.com> wrote... > [quoted text clipped - 50 lines] > > /i@/ Only if ":" is a phoneme of length, applicable to any vowel. This is the probably the best way of thinking of it in some languages (e.g., Latin, polynesian languages), but certainly not in any variety of English that I know of. > Can you give examples of your five-way contrast? > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > (These are, of course, notational variants of the Smith-Trager /i/. > /iy/, /ih/ respectively.) In "my" notation (which is certainly not mine alone!), /I/, /i:/, /i:@/ is simply another three-way notational variant. I prefer "my" notation because it corresponds most closely with the way these phonemes are pronounced in my dialect. You prefer another, at least partly because length isn't significant for you. Wells uses /I/, /i:/, I@/, which, coincidentally or not, corresponds to his own RP-like pronunciation. (He also quotes /i:@/ in some words, for example <idea>.) According to Brian, Gimson uses /I/ and /i:/ and ? It's largely a matter of convention. Of course (as I'm sure you'd agree) it'd be nice if linguists studying related dialects used the same symbols for corresponding phonemes, in so far as they could without making unjustified assumptions about what was "corresponding". The good thing about Smith-Trager is that it doesn't seem to agree in any consistent way with what one would put inside [..] in any particular dialect -- so when it's used, it's impossible to confuse phonemization with pronunciation. The bad thing is that it gives the impression, at least to the casual observer like me, that it's making some sort of "unjustified assumptions" about the correspondences between different dialects. _______ Whether /i:@/ (in my dialect) should be interpreted as a single-phoneme diphthong or as two phonemes, /i:/ followed by /@/, is a different point entirely. In Australian, I'm pretty sure the first is the case (but don't ask me to prove this!) The notation leaves the question open. But it does make clear that it's certainly not /I/ followed by /@/ down here. > *** > "Earring" and "hearing" sound very different because of the > morpheme-boundary-induced stress difference! I mentioned this above of course. Nevertheless, the vowel's the same (for me). > For one thing, the former > has a long r. "Keyring" differs from "earring" because it has a short > r. This is to be expected for you, because you're rhotic. For this non-rhotic, both have short r, but the previous vowel is different -- as I already pointed out. > "Serious" is the same as "hearing." I was wondering about that. So you have [hIrIN], S-T /hiriN/. Is <hear> the same? > Wa apparently agree, against most of the group, on [I] in "mirror." John. > "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote... > >> "John Atkinson" <johnacko@bigpond.com> wrote... [quoted text clipped - 53 lines] > > Only if ":" is a phoneme of length, applicable to any vowel. This is Yes. That's what writing a symbol between slants means. Length is phonemic. Erica Reiner turns it into a notational trick in her _Linguistic Analysis of Akkadian_, where she accounted for variation like "shaaru" vs. "sharru" by writing /Sa:ru/. > the probably the best way of thinking of it in some languages (e.g., > Latin, polynesian languages), but certainly not in any variety of [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > also quotes /i:@/ in some words, for example <idea>.) According to > Brian, Gimson uses /I/ and /i:/ and ? [The third of which appears as question-mark, not even between slants.] The huge problem with this is that the formal difference between <I> and <i> serves absolutely no functional purpose whatsoever, and that is simply unacceptable. Similarly for the formal difference between <:> and <:@>. > It's largely a matter of convention. Of course (as I'm sure you'd > agree) it'd be nice if linguists studying related dialects used the same [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > "unjustified assumptions" about the correspondences between different > dialects. Henry Lee Smith took this much further in "The Concept of the Morphophone" in the Bloch Memorial Number of *Language*, 43 (1967): 306-41 -- but this article had no impact at all, likely because SPE then emerged, discarding the notion of phoneme entirely. > _______ > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > The notation leaves the question open. But it does make clear that it's > certainly not /I/ followed by /@/ down here. _Phonemically_, it certainly is (because there's no distinction between a /I/ and a /i/).. > > *** > > "Earring" and "hearing" sound very different because of the [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > I was wondering about that. So you have [hIrIN], S-T /hiriN/. Is > <hear> the same? No!! No [I] in "hear"! > > Wa apparently agree, against most of the group, on [I] in "mirror." "Mirror" has [I], "merer" has [Ij] (or what Ranjit wants me to call [Ii]). "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote... >> "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote... >> >> "John Atkinson" <johnacko@bigpond.com> wrote... [...] >> >> /i:/ and /i:@/ and /I/ are indisputably different (<me> vs <mere> >> >> vs <mirror>), but there's no reason (in my dialect) to have more [quoted text clipped - 25 lines] > > Yes. That's what writing a symbol between slants means. Indeed it is. But I never wrote /:/. And I never would do so, when talking about English. I wrote /i:/, meaning "the phoneme of Australian English whose principal allophone is, broadly, [i:]" > Length is phonemic. If by "length is phonemic" one means something like "the main thing distinguishing BID from BEAD is length", then, yes, length is _phonemic_. But length is NOT _a_ phoneme_ (in the varieties of English under consideration). > Erica Reiner turns it into a notational trick in her _Linguistic > Analysis of Akkadian_, where she accounted for variation like "shaaru" > vs. "sharru" by writing /Sa:ru/. Fair enough -- if that's the way Akkadian works, and if she tells you that's how her symbol ":" is to be interpreted -- i.e., that the phoneme /:/ has the effect of making either or both of the adjacent phonemes to be lengthened and/or geminated. It would be even better if she had a naive native-speaker informant who could comment on the "naturalness" of this interpretation, no doubt! >> probably the best way of thinking of it in some languages (e.g., >> Latin, polynesian languages), but certainly not in any variety of [quoted text clipped - 35 lines] > is > simply unacceptable. Since "length" is a little more salient that "openness" in these varieties, according to most linguists, what you're saying, I think, is that the symbols used should be /i/ and /i:/, not /I/ and /i:/, because it's unacceptable to imply more than one thing at once in one's notation. I'll leave you to sort this one out with John Wells -- I don't want to get involved! > Similarly for the formal difference between <:> and <:@>. Try fronting up to the bar and asking for a /bi:/ instead of a /bi:@/! (In some pubs, RP /bI@/ would be even more likely to attract adverse attention.) >> It's largely a matter of convention. Of course (as I'm sure you'd >> agree) it'd be nice if linguists studying related dialects used the [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > 306-41 -- but this article had no impact at all, likely because SPE > then emerged, discarding the notion of phoneme entirely. The way I work in discussions like this is, as you know: "Phonemes may or may not be real, in the sense of corresponding to simple entities or unit processes in the language organ, but they're a useful component of a model which describes what it produces to a pretty good approximation." Which is significantly stronger than saying "They're just a convenient shorthand", of course. >> _______ >> [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > between > a /I/ and a /i/). /i/ isn't a phoneme of OzEng, so this statement is vacuous. OTOH, if you're meaning to say that /I/ and/i/ are alternative symbols for one and the same phoneme, the one in BID, then your statement is false -- "<hear> has /I/ plus /@/ down here" is certainly is not the case. My point is, that if the HEAR vowel were bimorphemic in OzEng (though I don't think this is the appropriate analysis), it would be /i:/ followed by /@/, _not_ /I/ followed by /@/. Whereas in RP, if the HEAR vowel were bimorphemic (I've no idea whether it should be considered so, not being a native speaker, nor having researched the subject), it would be /I/ followed by /@/, not /i:/ followed by /@/. Of course, if everyone were to agree that the HEAR vowel in Oz is always monomorphemic, then it wouldn't matter what it's called, so long as it's always the same thing, and so long as the combination of symbols used can't be interpreted as a different allowable combination of phonemes -- /i:@/, or /ir/, or /late for dinner/ are all equally acceptable (or unacceptable, if your minimalist criterion is strictly adhered to). [...] John. > "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote... > >> "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote... [quoted text clipped - 41 lines] > _phonemic_. But length is NOT _a_ phoneme_ (in the varieties of English > under consideration). By what chutzpah did you slice _three words_ out of context so that you could misinterpret them? I said that " [You] writing [the length-symbol] between slants means that [you say that] length is phonemic." Whether that's what you intended or not, it is what your notation unambiguously states. "Length is phonemic" is completely equivalent to "length is a phoneme." > > Erica Reiner turns it into a notational trick in her _Linguistic > > Analysis of Akkadian_, where she accounted for variation like "shaaru" [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > that's how her symbol ":" is to be interpreted -- i.e., that the phoneme > /:/ has the effect of making either or both of the adjacent phonemes to No, not "or both"! Why are you making things up???? > be lengthened and/or geminated. It would be even better if she had a > naive native-speaker informant who could comment on the "naturalness" of [quoted text clipped - 46 lines] > notation. I'll leave you to sort this one out with John Wells -- I > don't want to get involved! Nothing to do with "implication." The distinction between the two graphic shapes I and i is one distinction; the addition of the colon is another distinction. Thus you are stating -- not implying -- that there are _two_ significant differences between the two items; but "significant" itself means that either one of them alone is significant. A two-dimensional distinction implies at least three members of the set, and potentially four; if there are only two members, a single dimension is necessary and sufficient. > > Similarly for the formal difference between <:> and <:@>. > > Try fronting up to the bar and asking for a /bi:/ instead of a /bi:@/! > (In some pubs, RP /bI@/ would be even more likely to attract adverse > attention.) First of all, no one can say anything in "phonemes." The point is that there is no functional difference between /i@/ and */i:@/; the latter is redundant, and redundancy is not permitted in phonological systems. > >> It's largely a matter of convention. Of course (as I'm sure you'd > >> agree) it'd be nice if linguists studying related dialects used the [quoted text clipped - 46 lines] > and the same phoneme, the one in BID, then your statement is false -- > "<hear> has /I/ plus /@/ down here" is certainly is not the case. It seems that you are simply not understanding the concept of "abstraction" and "system." > My point is, that if the HEAR vowel were bimorphemic in OzEng (though I > don't think this is the appropriate analysis), it would be /i:/ followed > by /@/, _not_ /I/ followed by /@/. ?????? Vowels are not made of morphemes. > Whereas in RP, if the HEAR vowel were bimorphemic (I've no idea whether > it should be considered so, not being a native speaker, nor having > researched the subject), it would be /I/ followed by /@/, not /i:/ > followed by /@/. Since under no analysis are there two different phonemes /I/ and /i/, all the above is vacuous. > Of course, if everyone were to agree that the HEAR vowel in Oz is always > monomorphemic, then it wouldn't matter what it's called, so long as it's > always the same thing, and so long as the combination of symbols used > can't be interpreted as a different allowable combination of phonemes -- > /i:@/, or /ir/, or /late for dinner/ are all equally acceptable (or > unacceptable, if your minimalist criterion is strictly adhered to). You're finally beginning to get it. "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote... >> {...} monomorphemic [...] monomorphemic [...] I meant "monophonemic" in both these cases of course. Thanks for not jumping on me for this ridiculous thinko! It seems from your reply that you read what I meant to write, and not what I actually did write in these places, so, good! John. I confess I'm late to this party but... when I transferred into the High School in Murfreesboro, Tennessee in the middle 1960s, any number of people I knew would pronounce those three words in three clearly different ways. "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote... >> "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote... >> >> "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote... [quoted text clipped - 50 lines] > you > could misinterpret them? I was postulating (that's what "if" means!) a (possible but not likely) interpretation of your words which might make what you said agree with the facts of nonrhotic SBrit English, as we both know them. I said that " [You] writing [the > length-symbol] between slants means that [you say that] length is > phonemic." > > Whether that's what you intended or not, it is what your notation > unambiguously states. NO! I never never never wrote the length symbol ":" between slants. I wrote /i:/, where the two symbols "i" followed by ":", denote a single phoneme. /i/ is not a phoneme. /:/ is not a phoneme. /i:/ is a single unit phoneme, in the phonemic notation used by Wells, Gimson, and (!) Atkinson for RP, Australian, and most Southern English English > "Length is phonemic" is completely equivalent to "length is a > phoneme." "Height is phonemic" is equivalent to "height is a phoneme"? >> > Erica Reiner turns it into a notational trick in her _Linguistic >> > Analysis of Akkadian_, where she accounted for variation like [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > No, not "or both"! Why are you making things up???? OK. Leave out "or both". I was trying to guess what Reiner might have postulated, based only on what you wrote, and it's not unlikely that I guessed wrong >> be lengthened and/or geminated. It would be even better if she had a >> naive native-speaker informant who could comment on the "naturalness" [quoted text clipped - 72 lines] > > First of all, no one can say anything in "phonemes." OK, I'll reword it. If you asked for a <beer>, no probs. If you asked for a <bee>, or, homophonically, a <B>, you'd either be told "We don't sell insects here", or asked "Do you mean a GB or a VB?". If you asked for a [bI@], you'd either be told "Piss off, you bloody pom!", or, in more friendly places, heard as having said [bI?@], assumed to be speaking Estuary, and served a bitter. > The point is that there is no functional difference between /i@/ and > */i:@/; the latter is redundant, and redundancy is not permitted in [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > It seems that you are simply not understanding the concept of > "abstraction" and "system." There you go, eh. And to think I spent thirty years teaching a course called "Systems" without understanding the concept! >> My point is, that if the HEAR vowel were bimorphemic in OzEng (though >> I [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > ?????? Vowels are not made of morphemes. Sorry. So you did notice one of them! (See other post. -- I meant to write "biphonemic" of course!) What I meant is that the syllabic nucleus of <hear> -- a diphthong -- is best interpreted (IMO) as a unit phoneme, just as the the syllabic nucleus of <sigh> -- a diphthong -- is (according to all the analyses I've seen) a unit phoneme. And what I was saying is that, _if_ one adopts an analysis where this is not so, but rather that the syllabic nucleus consists of two phonemes (which, IMO, is less appropriate, but not obviously wrong), the first of these phonemes _must_ be (for the dialect spoken by most Australians) the one in BEAD, and definitely _not_ the one in BID. In fact, I think that in this (biphonemic) analysis, there would probably be a rule in Australian (though not in RP), which says that most (all ?) "short" vowels can't be immediately followed by either /@/ or the end of a word. (This would explain other things too, like why we say [sIti:] (phonemically /sIti:/) instead of conservative RP [sItI] (phonemically /sItI/) for <city>.) (But it runs into trouble if applied to SQUARE.) >> Whereas in RP, if the HEAR vowel were biphonemic (I've no idea >> whether [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > Since under no analysis are there two different phonemes /I/ and /i/, > all the above is vacuous. Where in the above have I postulated the existence of a phoneme /i/ ?!!! >> Of course, if everyone were to agree that the HEAR vowel in Oz is >> always [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > > You're finally beginning to get it. Yes. /i:@/ is acceptable because (in the monomorphemic model "everyone" has, putatively, agreed on) /i:/ is never followed by /@/ in the same syllable, so there's no possibility of misinterpretation. /ir/ and /late for dinner/ are acceptable provided the symbol "i" doesn't occur followed by "r" or "n" anywhere else in these two (somewhat absurd) notation sets. John. > "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote... > > [quoted text clipped - 69 lines] > unit phoneme, in the phonemic notation used by Wells, Gimson, and (!) > Atkinson for RP, Australian, and most Southern English English That's not the way it works. > > "Length is phonemic" is completely equivalent to "length is a > > phoneme." > > "Height is phonemic" is equivalent to "height is a phoneme"? Hieght is not notated as a distinct symbol between the slants enclosing a phonemic transcription. > >> > Erica Reiner turns it into a notational trick in her _Linguistic > >> > Analysis of Akkadian_, where she accounted for variation like [quoted text clipped - 96 lines] > more friendly places, heard as having said [bI?@], assumed to be > speaking Estuary, and served a bitter. And each of those utterances (the things in brackets) corresponds to a different phonemicization (the things in slants), and redundancy is not permitted in phonemic transcriptions. You clearly show that there is no contrast between an /I/ and an /i/ -- "bitter" and "beater" are respectively /bi?@/ and /bi:?@/ in that dialect. Or, /bI?@/ and /bi?@/. But analysts have evidently found that length is a more useful distinction than quality in describing such dialects overall. > > The point is that there is no functional difference between /i@/ and > > */i:@/; the latter is redundant, and redundancy is not permitted in [quoted text clipped - 26 lines] > There you go, eh. And to think I spent thirty years teaching a course > called "Systems" without understanding the concept! Not, evidently, phonological systems! Mike Wallace once did one of his classic *60 Minutes* expose's of a business scam by setting up a dummy front corporation, and when the forms asked what the corporation did, they wrote in "We are a systems organization." > >> My point is, that if the HEAR vowel were bimorphemic in OzEng (though > >> I [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > nucleus of <sigh> -- a diphthong -- is (according to all the analyses > I've seen) a unit phoneme. That's why Smith-Trager refer to the 36 possible "syllabic nuclei," 9 of which are single phonemes, 27 of which comprise a vowel and an off-glide (/w, y, h/). > And what I was saying is that, _if_ one adopts an analysis where this is > not so, but rather that the syllabic nucleus consists of two phonemes > (which, IMO, is less appropriate, but not obviously wrong), the first of > these phonemes _must_ be (for the dialect spoken by most Australians) > the one in BEAD, and definitely _not_ the one in BID. Which is why S-T use i and not I for the upper left vowel symbol. That and, it's easier to type. > In fact, I think that in this (biphonemic) analysis, there would > probably be a rule in Australian (though not in RP), which says that [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > (phonemically /sItI/) for <city>.) (But it runs into trouble if applied > to SQUARE.) Phonemically /sitiy/ > >> Whereas in RP, if the HEAR vowel were biphonemic (I've no idea > >> whether [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > Where in the above have I postulated the existence of a phoneme /i/ ?!!! You are allowing redundancy. You cannot differentiate a two-way contrast by _both_ quality and length! > >> Of course, if everyone were to agree that the HEAR vowel in Oz is > >> always [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > > John. "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote... >> "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote... >> [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > > That's not the way it works. It's the way it works for Wells (haven't read Gimson so can't comment thereon). Here's what he says (Accents of English 1, p 50): "A biphonemic analysis of [English] diphthongs forces the analyst to make many [...] difficult -- and essentially meaningless -- choices. [...] It is for this reason that in this work I have followed a monophonemic evaluation of diphthongs, including diphthong phonemes as members of vowel systems. This is further supported by diachronic considerations, in that diphthongs typically undergo a different historical development from that undergone by the phonemes of which, under a bimorphemic analysis, they would be regarded as consisting." [...] >> >> >> > Can you give examples of your five-way contrast? >> >> >> > [quoted text clipped - 131 lines] > > Not, evidently, phonological systems! True. Mechanical systems and control systems. > Mike Wallace once did one of his classic *60 Minutes* expose's of a > business scam by setting up a dummy front corporation, and when the > forms asked what the corporation did, they wrote in "We are a systems > organization." Well, I think we can both agree that in the jargon of business management, words mean what the speaker wants them to mean -- if anything. >> >> My point is, that if the HEAR vowel were biphonemic in OzEng >> >> (though >> >> I don't think this is the appropriate analysis), it would be /i:/ >> >> followed by /@/, _not_ /I/ followed by /@/. [...] >> What I meant is that the syllabic nucleus of <hear> -- a >> diphthong -- [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > That's why What's why???? > Smith-Trager refer to the 36 possible "syllabic nuclei," 9 > of which are single phonemes, 27 of which comprise a vowel and an > off-glide (/w, y, h/). OK. In S-T theory, all but 9 "syllabic nuclei" (including all diphthongs and triphthongs) consist of exactly 2 phonemes, essentially by fiat. But wait! Above, you claim that my claim for the existence of /I/, /i:/ and /i:@/ _requires_ the existence of /i/ and /i@/. Seem to be leading to a contradiction here. RP contains just twenty-one "syllabic nuclei". OzEng contains either 20, 21, or 22 -- depending on whether you analyse /I/ (S-T /i/) and /@/ (S-T /@/, I suppose?) as having merged, and /&/ (S-T /&/ -- the LAD vowel) and /&:/ (S-T /&h/ I presume? -- the BAD vowel) as having split. So, does S-T claim that there are really 36? Does their notation _require_ the the existence of the other 15? (Of course not.) Since all I know about S-T is what I've learned from you -- the books you've recommended from time to time I don't have here -- let me just jot down my guesses as to how the syllabic nuclei of OzEng are denoted in S-T: "Single phonemes": /i, e, &, V, a, o, u/, and, marginally, /@/. (That's 7 or 8; what's the nineth?) /iy/ (Wells i:), /ey/ (Wells VI), /ay/ (Wells AI), /oy/ (Wells OI) . (Only 4 of these) /aw/ (Wells &U), /ow/ (Wells VU), /uw/ (Wells u:) (3 of these.) /ih/ (Wells i:@), /eh/ (Wells e@, though I reckon it 's E:@), /ah/ (Wells a:), /@h/ (Wells 3:), /oh/ (Wells O:), /uh/ (Wells u:@). And, marginally, /&h/ (Wells &: -- the BAD vowel) (6 or 7 of these.) Correction invited and criticism welcomed. >> And what I was saying is that, _if_ one adopts an analysis where this >> is [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > Which is why S-T use i and not I for the upper left vowel symbol. And how does this make it clear that RP and OzE don't work the same way phonemically wrt the vowels in the NEAR set? > That and, it's easier to type. > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > Phonemically /sitiy/ S-T/sitiy/ in OzE, S-T/siti/ in RP. [...] John. > "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote... > > [quoted text clipped - 28 lines] > from that undergone by the phonemes of which, under a bimorphemic > analysis, they would be regarded as consisting." So he chose to (mis)use the term "phoneme" instead of the term "syllabic nucleus." Daniel Jones's use of "phoneme" likely differed from that of Morris Swadesh and Edward Sapir. > >> >> My point is, that if the HEAR vowel were biphonemic in OzEng > >> >> (though [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > > What's why???? You perhaps inadvertently mentioned syllabic nuclei. > > Smith-Trager refer to the 36 possible "syllabic nuclei," 9 > > of which are single phonemes, 27 of which comprise a vowel and an [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > diphthongs and triphthongs) consist of exactly 2 phonemes, essentially > by fiat. By rigorous analysis. > But wait! Above, you claim that my claim for the existence of /I/, > /i:/ and /i:@/ _requires_ the existence of /i/ and /i@/. Seem to be > leading to a contradiction here. No. If you have two distinctions, you must be accounting for at least three entities. > RP contains just twenty-one "syllabic nuclei". OzEng contains either > 20, 21, or 22 -- depending on whether you analyse /I/ (S-T /i/) and /@/ [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > jot down my guesses as to how the syllabic nuclei of OzEng are denoted > in S-T: You can't tell me there are no copies of *Language* (the journal) in Australian libraries, or that Australian libraries do not have access to JSTOR. The "Morphophone" article will suffice, and will refer you to any number of earlier articles in *Language*. > "Single phonemes": /i, e, &, V, a, o, u/, and, marginally, /@/. > (That's 7 or 8; what's the nineth?) i + u e @ o & a O I can't tell you which is the "nineth." > /iy/ (Wells i:), /ey/ (Wells VI), /ay/ (Wells AI), /oy/ (Wells OI) . > (Only 4 of these) [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > Correction invited and criticism welcomed. I have no way of knowing how to analyze your dialect! > >> And what I was saying is that, _if_ one adopts an analysis where this > >> is [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > And how does this make it clear that RP and OzE don't work the same way > phonemically wrt the vowels in the NEAR set? That's in what Ranjit calls the "table" of correspondences at the front of the dictionary. > > That and, it's easier to type. > > [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > > S-T/sitiy/ in OzE, S-T/siti/ in RP. (not any more) "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote... >> "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote... >> >> "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote... [quoted text clipped - 60 lines] > > You perhaps inadvertently mentioned syllabic nuclei. No, intentionally. In the same sense as you do, in the line below this. >> > Smith-Trager refer to the 36 possible "syllabic nuclei," 9 >> > of which are single phonemes, 27 of which comprise a vowel and an [quoted text clipped - 32 lines] > Australian libraries, or that Australian libraries do not have access > to JSTOR. The nearest University libraries to me here are twenty miles south (Wollongong) and sixty miles north (Sydney Uni). Only the latter is accessible to me. I next expect to be in its vicinity some time in March, since I have other business at that university about then. I doubt if this thread will still be active by then. > The "Morphophone" article will suffice, and will refer you to > any number of earlier articles in *Language*. > >> "Single phonemes": /i, e, &, V, a, o, u/, and, marginally, /@/. >> (That's 7 or 8; what's the nineth?) Actually, 6 or 7 (my mistake). Erase either "V" or "a", since there's only one "short" vowel thereabouts -- the STRUT vowel. > i + u > e @ o > & a O > > I can't tell you which is the "nineth." "i,e,&,u", are (obviously?) KIT, DRESS, TRAP, FOOT. "@" is, presumably, lettER and commA, which occurs only in unstressed syllables, and, for some OzE speakers, merges with "i" (before consonants) and "a" (word final). Similarly, "a" fits STRUT. That leaves "o" and "O", either of which could be CLOTH, with the other one nonexistent in the dialect I'm trying to S-Tise. As for "+", I'm quite certain it corresponds to nothing at all in OzE -- in fact, offhand, the only European language with both /+/ and /@/ I can think of is Romanian. > I have no way of knowing how to analyze your dialect! Well, in that case, how can you be so bloody certain that S-T is not only a possible but even an optimal way to go? I'll try to be more explicit. In the following list, the first item is my guess at the way S-T would phonemize OzE, the second is the way Wells does it, the third is the word Wells uses to indicate lexical incidence, and the last -- after the dash -- is the main feature that distinguishes each syllabic nucleus from the corresponding "short" vowel, as listed above. This last is based on my interpretation of my own idiolect, but I'd be very surprised if it was different for any speaker of General Australian. (And (before you bite), let me point out that I'm not using the word "feature" in a highly technical sense -- replace it by the word "thing" if this upsets you.) /iy/ (Wells i:) (FLEECE) -- main distinguishing feature is length /ey/ (Wells VI) (FACE) -- main distinguishing feature is high front offglide /ay/ (Wells AI) (PRICE) -- high front offglide /oy/ or /Oy/ (Wells OI) (CHOICE) -- high front offglide. /aw/ (Wells &U) (MOUTH) -- main distinguishing feature is high back off-glide /ow/ or /Ow/ (Wells VU) (GOAT) -- high back offglide /uw/ (Wells u:) (GOOSE) -- main distinguishing feature is length /ih/ (Wells i:@) (NEAR) -- main distinguishing feature is low central offglide /eh/ (Wells e@, my E:@) (SQUARE) -- main distinguishing feature is length /ah/ (Wells a:) (BATH, PALM, START) -- length /@h/ (Wells 3:) (NURSE) -- length /oh/ or /Oh/ (Wells O:) (THOUGHT, NORTH, FORCE) -- length /uh/ (Wells u:@) (CURE) -- main distinguishing feature is low central offglide /&h/ (Wells &: -- the Australian BAD vowel -- not everyone has it) -- main distinguishing feature is length. I hope this is sufficient for you to see what's going on in my dialect, so that you can explain to me why S-T is a useful/appropriate/meaningful "abstraction"/"system" for the phonemic analysis of said dialect. The most obvious point is that the three putative "phonemes" /y/, /w/, /h/ aren't consistent in what they do. It's impossible that they could be, since in OzE (and RP, and ...) there are four "main distinguishing features". The features that I've called "high front offglide", "high back off-glide", and "low central offglide" are consistently represented by /y,w,h/ respectively, but the feature "length" is represented by all three of them, in different nuclei. Sure, there's a pattern there, and if each of these digraphs was considered to represent a single phoneme, one could live with the convention that "h", for example, symbolizes length in some cases, an offglide in others, and in two (SQUARE and THOUGHT), it's not easy to pick which is the "main" feature (though I think it's length). And, conversely, one could live with the convention that length is symbolized by three different letters, "y", "w", "h", in different cases. But, as you've made clear, for S-T, diphthongs and "long" vowels are _biphonemic_. Thus, S-T is saying that the "length" phoneme /h/ is the _same_ phoneme as the "low offglide" phoneme /h/ -- which makes about as much sense as the old theory that the consonant pronounced [h] and the consonant pronounced [N] are the same phoneme in English. >> Correction invited and criticism welcomed. > [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > front > of the dictionary. I have no dictionary that uses S-T, unfortunately. I certainly have no dictionary (and I'd be surprised if one exists), that discusses (or tabulates) the way RP differs from OzE using S-T. >> > That and, it's easier to type. >> > [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > > (not any more) For some speakers. You must have noted I specifically said "conservative RP". Why do you think I did that, if not to take account of this in-progress sound change? John. On Wed, 10 Jan 2007 06:12:58 GMT, John Atkinson <johnacko@bigpond.com> wrote in <news:Kt%oh.4216$A8.1299@news-server.bigpond.net.au> in alt.usage.english,sci.lang: > "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote... [...] >> i + u >> e @ o >> & a O >> I can't tell you which is the "nineth." > "i,e,&,u", are (obviously?) KIT, DRESS, TRAP, FOOT. "@" > is, presumably, lettER and commA, which occurs only in [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > either of which could be CLOTH, with the other one > nonexistent in the dialect I'm trying to S-Tise. According to <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_English_phonology>, that's /O/ in Durie-Hajek or Harrington-Cox-Evans and /A./ in Mitchell-Delbridge, so I suppose that it would be S-T /O/. > As for "+", I'm quite certain it corresponds to nothing > at all in OzE -- in fact, offhand, the only European > language with both /+/ and /@/ I can think of is > Romanian. It's a marginal distinction in some U.S. varieties; Peter will cite 'Russias' with /@/ vs. 'rushes' with /+/, and I have a similar distinction. [...] > I'll try to be more explicit. In the following list, the > first item is my guess at the way S-T would phonemize [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > I'd be very surprised if it was different for any speaker > of General Australian. [...] > /ow/ or /Ow/ (Wells VU) (GOAT) -- high back offglide Why not S-T /@w/? [...] > /oh/ or /Oh/ (Wells O:) (THOUGHT, NORTH, FORCE) -- length Probably /Oh/. [...] Brian "Brian M. Scott" <b.scott@csuohio.edu> wrote... > John Atkinson <johnacko@bigpond.com> wrote : >> "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote... [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > in Mitchell-Delbridge, so I suppose that it would be S-T > /O/. Makes sense. >> As for "+", I'm quite certain it corresponds to nothing >> at all in OzE -- in fact, offhand, the only European [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > will cite 'Russias' with /@/ vs. 'rushes' with /+/, and I > have a similar distinction. RP supposedly has that distinction (whether in those particular words, I don't know). But the second is usually taken to be /I/ -- S-T /i/ -- not /+/. Is there a minimal pair between these two in the USA? I understand the KIT vowel is always quite central for some Americans, anyway -- is it going too far to say that they have S-T/+/, but don't have S-T /i/ at all? > [...] > [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > > Why not S-T /@w/? About equally close, phonetically. I was influenced by the spelling and/or history, no doubt, which I shouldn't have been. But I think I'll stick with /Ow/ > [...] > >> /oh/ or /Oh/ (Wells O:) (THOUGHT, NORTH, FORCE) -- length > > Probably /Oh/. OK. Similarly /Oy/, rather than /oy/. Note that we've now got rid of "o" altogether -- none of /o/, /oy/, /ow/, /oh/ exists. Summarising, we have: i . u e (@) . & a O iy . . ey . . ay Oy . . uw . . . . aw Ow ih . uh eh @h . (&h) ah Oh (..) denotes "marginal" The relative positioning on these diagrams is pretty iffy. For example, /eh/ is actually slightly more open than /Oh/. /@h/ is less open than these two, while /ah/ is considerably more so. Taking the Great Diphthong Shift into account, . . . . @y oy . ay Oy . . . . @w . &w aw . would be a somewhat less inaccurate representation, for Broad Australian at any rate. (/@y/ as in FLEECE, /ay/ as in FACE, /Oy/ as in PRICE, /oy/ as in CHOICE, /&w/ as in MOUTH, /@w/ as in GOOSE, /aw/ as in GOAT) But this is confusing the issue, no? John. > The relative positioning on these diagrams is pretty iffy. For example, > /eh/ is actually slightly more open than /Oh/. /@h/ is less open than > these two, while /ah/ is considerably more so. No, these are phonemes, not phonetic representations. Phonemes form neat, predictable systems. See Hockett, Manual of Phonology (1955). > On Wed, 10 Jan 2007 06:12:58 GMT, John Atkinson > > As for "+", I'm quite certain it corresponds to nothing > > at all in OzE -- in fact, offhand, the only European [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > will cite 'Russias' with /@/ vs. 'rushes' with /+/, and I > have a similar distinction. We spent a whole day in Jim Gair's phonology class (1970) coming up with minimal pairs. Unfortunately, I don't know what my mother did with my college notebooks after I moved to Chicago. > > On Wed, 10 Jan 2007 06:12:58 GMT, John Atkinson > [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > Unfortunately, I don't know what my mother did with my college > notebooks after I moved to Chicago. "Rosa's" and "roses"? Is a three-way distinction with "Rose's" conceivable? SignatureJerry Friedman > "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote... > > [quoted text clipped - 125 lines] > "i,e,&,u", are (obviously?) KIT, DRESS, TRAP, FOOT. "@" is, presumably, > lettER and commA, which occurs only in unstressed syllables, and, for What utter nonsense! As has been set forth here countless times, /'@/ is [V]. > some OzE speakers, merges with "i" (before consonants) and "a" (word > final). Similarly, "a" fits STRUT. What utter nonsense! /a/ is FATHER, STRUT is /'@/. > That leaves "o" and "O", either of > which could be CLOTH, with the other one nonexistent in the dialect I'm > trying to S-Tise. CLOTH is /O/, and /o/ does not occur in any English dialect I'm familiar with. Don't forget the other 27 possible nuclei, where contrasts involving these do occur. > As for "+", I'm quite certain it corresponds to > nothing at all in OzE -- in fact, offhand, the only European language > with both /+/ and /@/ I can think of is Romanian. Must I cite yet again the magnificent minimal pair "Russias" and "rushes"? The former has /@/, the latter has /+/. > > I have no way of knowing how to analyze your dialect! > > > Well, in that case, how can you be so bloody certain that S-T is not > only a possible but even an optimal way to go? Because it is a _phonemic_ analysis that provides for THIRTY-SIX different syllabic nuclei, far more than enough to cover any dialect of English. > I'll try to be more explicit. In the following list, the first item is > my guess at the way S-T would phonemize OzE, the second is the way Wells Only the long vowels of OzE, apparently! > does it, the third is the word Wells uses to indicate lexical incidence, > and the last -- after the dash -- is the main feature that distinguishes [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > "feature" in a highly technical sense -- replace it by the word "thing" > if this upsets you.) I wish I could see these in a mono-spaced font (in case you made a table of them). "Distinguishing feature" is meaningless if you don't say what you're distinguishing it from! > /iy/ (Wells i:) (FLEECE) -- main distinguishing feature is length > /ey/ (Wells VI) (FACE) -- main distinguishing feature is high front [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > /@h/ (Wells 3:) (NURSE) -- length > /oh/ or /Oh/ (Wells O:) (THOUGHT, NORTH, FORCE) -- length /O/; they're short. > /uh/ (Wells u:@) (CURE) -- main distinguishing feature is low central > offglide /juw/ > /&h/ (Wells &: -- the Australian BAD vowel -- not everyone has it) -- > main distinguishing feature is length. > > I hope this is sufficient for you to see what's going on in my dialect, > so that you can explain to me why S-T is a useful/appropriate/meaningful > "abstraction"/"system" for the phonemic analysis of said dialect. It's all clear except the ones involving all your missing r's. S-T is all those things because it is _minimal_ -- there are no redundancies, and every extant contrast is accounted for. > The most obvious point is that the three putative "phonemes" /y/, /w/, > /h/ aren't consistent in what they do. It's impossible that they could Show me where "consistent" is a criterion for phonemehood? The criteria are CONTRASTIVE DISTRIBUTION and PHONETIC SIMILARITY (which is all that prevents /h/ and /N/ from being a single phoneme -- and which is why Gleason uses /H/ and not /h/ for the offglide). > be, since in OzE (and RP, and ...) there are four "main distinguishing > features". The features that I've called "high front offglide", "high > back off-glide", and "low central offglide" are consistently represented > by /y,w,h/ respectively, but the feature "length" is represented by all > three of them, in different nuclei. That's because, in this analysis, length is not considered to be, on its own, a "distinguishing feature." If you have /w, y, h/, you don't need /:/ as well; and since you need all three because of undisputed diphthongs, you make use of them elsewhere in the analysis. > Sure, there's a pattern there, and if each of these digraphs was > considered to represent a single phoneme, one could live with the [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > conversely, one could live with the convention that length is symbolized > by three different letters, "y", "w", "h", in different cases. Length happens to be the phonetic realization of those phonemes in some syllabic nuclei. > But, as you've made clear, for S-T, diphthongs and "long" vowels are > _biphonemic_. Thus, S-T is saying that the "length" phoneme /h/ is the > _same_ phoneme as the "low offglide" phoneme /h/ -- which makes about as > much sense as the old theory that the consonant pronounced [h] and the > consonant pronounced [N] are the same phoneme in English. Whose "old theory" was that? It's always given as the counterexample I provided above (yes, I didn't read all the way to the bottom before I started typing). In fact, with the advent of distinctive feature theory (Jakobson, Fant, & Halle 1951, but also precursors in Trubetzkoy), [h] and [N] turn out not to be all that different anyway -- differing by only two features, [voice] and [nasal], only one of which would be distinctive, the other redundant and hence omitted from the feature array. > >> Correction invited and criticism welcomed. > > [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > dictionary (and I'd be surprised if one exists), that discusses (or > tabulates) the way RP differs from OzE using S-T. Were any linguistics textbooks published down there in the 1950s or 60s? Did any Oz linguists come to the US for training rather than Britain? > >> > That and, it's easier to type. > >> > [quoted text clipped - 22 lines] > "conservative RP". Why do you think I did that, if not to take account > of this in-progress sound change? It's all but entirely completed. Look at 50s movies -- already then, the older people used [lI], the younger [li]. > What utter nonsense! As has been set forth here countless times, /'@/ > is [V]. Except, of course, in those dialects that distinguish them. >> some OzE speakers, merges with "i" (before consonants) and "a" (word >> final). Similarly, "a" fits STRUT. > > What utter nonsense! /a/ is FATHER, STRUT is /'@/. Something tells me that you've never listened to OzE. Or, for that matter, any non-rhotic dialect of English that uses completely different vowels for "Bert" and "but". SignaturePeter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org Please note the changed e-mail and web addresses. The domain eepjm.newcastle.edu.au no longer exists, and I can no longer receive mail at my newcastle.edu.au addresses. The optusnet address could disappear at any time. ("Newsgroups" trimmed to alt.usage.english only.) > Something tells me that you've never listened to OzE. Or, for that > matter, any non-rhotic dialect of English that uses completely different > vowels for "Bert" and "but". For example, the American English that I'm familiar with, where the two indeed have completely different vowels. (My speech is rhotic, but I still have the schwa in "Bert".) But Merriam-Webster uses a schwa for the vowel of "but" when stressed and for the second vowel in "bacon" when unstressed, so there must be somewhere in America where people talk like that. (SalvatorE?) Incidentally, I've realized in recent years that a quite noticeable feature of British speech is the use of the vowel of "but" in words like "hurry", where I'm used to hearing the second vowel of "bacon". > ("Newsgroups" trimmed to alt.usage.english only.) > [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > unstressed, so there must be somewhere in America where > people talk like that. (SalvatorE?) I don't know about SalVo, but I use the same sound in "but" and the last syllable in "bacon". In other words, I suppose it's the schwa sound. > Incidentally, I've realized in recent years that a quite > noticeable feature of British speech is the use of the vowel > of "but" in words like "hurry", where I'm used to hearing > the second vowel of "bacon". You are saying that you don't hear (use?) the same sound? I leave "hurry" out of it, since, except in some rare cases*, I don't think you can isolate the vowel from the effect of the "r" sound. *Perhaps that is so in the variant of British speech that you hear, but for me, I hear it mainly in words in which the schwa (if that is what you hear) is clearly in a separate syllable from the "r". Like the "w" and sometimes the "l", the time it takes to form the sound causes a blend of the vowel with the consonant. Sometimes people with speech and/or hearing difficulties, or babies growing up, or accents from other places mix the sounds, don't they? "Little Theater(er)." "White wice/lice/rice." "Rawreggs." And doesn't this cause spelling problems for them? I think I have mentioned a cousin who pronounced her brother Larry's name variously as "Wawwy, and as Lawwy". Punctuation confusion--if the asterisk refers to "cases", it should come before the comma. Right? But it looks strange. > ("Newsgroups" trimmed to alt.usage.english only.) Good man! > But Merriam-Webster uses a schwa for the vowel of "but" when > stressed and for the second vowel in "bacon" when > unstressed, so there must be somewhere in America where > people talk like that. (SalvatorE?) DLAM. But doesn't Erk say he talks like that? ADWODIMV. > Incidentally, I've realized in recent years that a quite > noticeable feature of British speech is the use of the vowel > of "but" in words like "hurry", where I'm used to hearing > the second vowel of "bacon". Not just British speech; in my own dialect (New York English), "hurry" has the vowel of "but" and does not rhyme with "furry". SignatureSalvatore Volatile "Peter Moylan" <peter@ozebelgDieSpammers.org> wrote... >> What utter nonsense! As has been set forth here countless times, /'@/ >> is [V]. [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > different > vowels for "Bert" and "but". Or, for that matter, any dialect where the distinction between short/checked/lax vowels and long/free/tense vowels (take your pick which terminology you think most appropriate) is the most salient distinction there is -- for example, it governs permissible syllable structure. In OzE (and, I'm pretty sure, all other nonrhotic SBritE) STRUT is "short". FATHer (= PALM) is "long". BERT (= NURSE) is "long". THOUGHT is "long". If S-T is to have any relevance at all in the analysis of such a dialect, it _must_ agree with this classification above all else. One obvious way to do this is to take all "short" vowels (plus unstressed @) as monomorphemic, and all "long" vowels (including diphthongs) not so. So that's what I did in my attempt to apply S-T. You're apparently telling me that's not the way they do it. Fair enough. So, how do they decide which vowels should be monophonemic in their system? FWIW, Wells classifies the vowels of GenAm also as "checked" vs "free". (I'm of course in no position to decide whether this is as basic in your dialect as it is in mine, or even whether his classification is correct!) He classifies THOUGHT and PALM among the GenAm "free" vowels. You've told me these two are monophonemic in the S-T system as applied to your dialect. John. On Wed, 10 Jan 2007 15:23:34 GMT, John Atkinson <johnacko@bigpond.com> wrote in <news:Wx7ph.4421$A8.3887@news-server.bigpond.net.au> in alt.usage.english,sci.lang: [...] > FWIW, Wells classifies the vowels of GenAm also as > "checked" vs "free". (I'm of course in no position to [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > vowels. You've told me these two are monophonemic in the > S-T system as applied to your dialect. But not for everyone here. Gleason points out that some speakers, mostly in New England, have 'cot' /kOt/ and 'caught' /kOht/. (For many, of course, both are /kat/.) He also notes that depending on dialect 'bomb' and 'balm' can be identical, /bam/ & /bahm/, /bOm/ & /bahm/, or /b@m/ & /bahm/, never mind the pronunciations of 'balm' with /l/. Presumably the /bahm/ dialects would generally have /pahm/ for 'palm'. Two others are 'have' /h&v/ versus 'halve' /h&hv/, and 'reel' /riyl/ vs. 'real' /rihl/. Brian "Brian M. Scott" <b.scott@csuohio.edu> wrote... > John Atkinson <johnacko@bigpond.com> wrote : > [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > Presumably the /bahm/ dialects would generally have /pahm/ > for 'palm'. Could you translate all those into phonetics -- square brackets -- as pronounced by a typical speaker? (I've already been slapped about for behaving as though the S-T /h/, /y/, /w/ should more or less consistently relate to what speakers hear themselves saying. :-) > Two others are 'have' /h&v/ versus 'halve' /h&hv/, The second being /hahv/ here, of course. > and 'reel' /riyl/ vs. 'real' /rihl/. Occurs for some Brit speakers -- typically, [ri:l] vs [rI@l or [ri:@l] -- the same as <he> vs <here>. I don't have it (<real> is [ri:l] for me), but I do have it in <deal> /diyl/ vs <ideal> /aydihl/. (Well, I think I do -- it's one of those things where the more you think the more uncertain you become.) John. [I've snipped where I thought I could get away with it, but this's still _much_ too long] "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote... >> "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote... >> >> "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote... >> >> >> "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote... [...snip...] >> >> >> >> My point is, that if the HEAR vowel were biphonemic in OzEng >> >> >> >> (though I don't think this is the appropriate analysis), it [quoted text clipped - 40 lines] >> > least >> > three entities. Since you claim I must have at least five entities, I must have be making at least four distinctions. Assuming, as you say is compulsory, that each symbol represents one distinction, there's I/i (open/closed), :/~: (long/short), and @/~@ (upglide/no upglide). That's three. What's the fourth? >> >> RP contains just twenty-one "syllabic nuclei". OzEng contains >> >> either [quoted text clipped - 46 lines] > What utter nonsense! As has been set forth here countless times, /'@/ > is [V]. See other post, in reply to Peter M. >> some OzE speakers, merges with "i" (before consonants) and "a" (word >> final). Similarly, "a" fits STRUT. > > What utter nonsense! /a/ is FATHER, STRUT is /'@/. See other post. >> That leaves "o" and "O", either of >> which could be CLOTH, with the other one nonexistent in the dialect [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > familiar with. Don't forget the other 27 possible nuclei, where > contrasts involving these do occur. Adopting Brian's suggestions, we're left with no nuclei /o, oh, oy, ow/ in OzE. >> As for "+", I'm quite certain it corresponds to >> nothing at all in OzE -- in fact, offhand, the only European language >> with both /+/ and /@/ I can think of is Romanian. > > Must I cite yet again the magnificent minimal pair "Russias" and > "rushes"? The former has /@/, the latter has /+/. See other post. So what? "Offhand", I didn't know that one, or more likely it slipped my mind. You could also have pointed out that many Amazonian languages have both /+/ and /@/. But, to repeat, + doesn't correspond to anything in OzE. >> > I have no way of knowing how to analyze your dialect! >> > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > of > English. Or, for that matter, more than enough to cover the large majority of the world's languages. Spanish, for example, selects /i, e, a, o, u, ey, ay, oy, ew, aw, ow/ from the S-T list. (Of course, it has onglides too, but then, so does English.) This one's easy, much easier than most Englishes! Arrernte selects /+, a, +h, ah/ Wik-Me'nh selects /i, e, a, o, u, +, uy, oh/ Even selects /i, e, @, o, u, iy, ey, oy, uy, ah, eh, @h, oh, uh, iw, ew, ow, uw/. (None of these are diphthongs.) What is your definition of "analysis"? >> I'll try to be more explicit. In the following list, the first item >> is >> my guess at the way S-T would phonemize OzE, the second is the way >> Wells > > Only the long vowels of OzE, apparently! Of course! The way Wells does it in his description of OzE. Not the systems he proposes for Scots, East Anglian, or Basilectal Jamaican English. What's more, in cases where Wells gives alternatives (for different varieties of Australian), I've only written down one of them. OK? >> does it, the third is the word Wells uses to indicate lexical >> incidence, [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > I wish I could see these in a mono-spaced font (in case you made a > table of them). I didn't, actually! > "Distinguishing feature" is meaningless if you don't say what you're > distinguishing it from! True. In each case, I'm distinguishing the "bimorphemic" expression from the initial morpheme. Sorry if that wasn't obvious. >> /iy/ (Wells i:) (FLEECE) -- main distinguishing feature is length >> /ey/ (Wells VI) (FACE) -- main distinguishing feature is high front [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > > /O/; they're short. No. See other post. Anyway, I thought length wasn't phonemic in GenAm? Anyway again, if by "short" you mean "checked" -- must be followed by a consonant in the same syllable, at least in strong syllables -- then what about <paw>? Or is this word different phonemically for you? >> /uh/ (Wells u:@) (CURE) -- main distinguishing feature is low central >> offglide > > /juw/ Whether /j/ following a consonant (and, equally, /w/) represents part of an initial consonant cluster or an onglide to the syllabic nucleus has been the subject of a previous thread. There's rationale for either choice. Off topic anyway. As for the final /w/ in your representation: <cure> ([ku:@] in Oz, [kU@] or [kjO:] in RP) is definitely not the same as <cue> -- which has to be S-T /kjuw/ in any dialect I know. (Maybe they're homophones in AAVE though?) >> /&h/ (Wells &: -- the Australian BAD vowel -- not everyone has it) -- >> main distinguishing feature is length. [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > It's all clear except the ones involving all your missing r's. What missing r's? Did someone steal them? Nonrhotic BritE doesn't have final r's synchronically. It doesn't need them. That's beyond dispute! > S-T is > all those things because it is _minimal_ -- there are no redundancies, > and every extant contrast is accounted for. If this is true, and if it's a valid argument, then S-T's useful/appropriate/meaningful for every dialect of every language of the world which has 36 or less syllabic nuclei, no matter what those nuclei are, what they sound like, and how they're related in that dialect. No? If not, why not? >> The most obvious point is that the three putative "phonemes" /y/, >> /w/, [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > prevents /h/ and /N/ from being a single phoneme -- and which is why > Gleason uses /H/ and not /h/ for the offglide). OK. Then I'll put it this way. They're not PHONETICALLY SIMILAR in many (most?) dialects of English, for any value of the word "similar" which doesn't overlap disastrously with the word "dissimilar". >> be, since in OzE (and RP, and ...) there are four "main >> distinguishing [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > some > syllabic nuclei. "Happens", eh? Does it just happen to happen, or is there some way of predicting when it will happen, in the dialect you happen to be analysing? >> But, as you've made clear, for S-T, diphthongs and "long" vowels are >> _biphonemic_. Thus, S-T is saying that the "length" phoneme /h/ is [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > Whose "old theory" was that? Dunno. Perhaps "old theory" wasn't accurate there. What I meant was "example given many years ago of how the criteria commonly used for sounds to be allophonic occasionally lead to results which seem silly". That's longer -- nineteen words instead of two -- but a less inaccurate rendering of what I was wanting to say, I think. > It's always given as the counterexample I > provided above (yes, I didn't read all the way to the bottom before I [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > [voice] and [nasal], only one of which would be distinctive, the other > redundant and hence omitted from the feature array. Is there any known case where a sound change has converted one into the other? (Sorry, off topic) >> >> Correction invited and criticism welcomed. >> > [quoted text clipped - 29 lines] > Were any linguistics textbooks published down there in the 1950s or > 60s? Certainly were, though I've never seen any of them that dealt with English that I can remember. Why? >Did any Oz linguists come to the US for training rather than > Britain? Undoubtedly. [...] John. > [I've snipped where I thought I could get away with it, but this's still > _much_ too long] [quoted text clipped - 57 lines] > :/~: (long/short), and @/~@ (upglide/no upglide). That's three. What's > the fourth? No, you make _three_ distinctions, accounting for at least five, or as many as eight, entities. 2^2 = 4 < n < 2^3 = 8, > >> >> RP contains just twenty-one "syllabic nuclei". OzEng contains > >> >> either [quoted text clipped - 67 lines] > Adopting Brian's suggestions, we're left with no nuclei /o, oh, oy, ow/ > in OzE. No problem! > >> As for "+", I'm quite certain it corresponds to > >> nothing at all in OzE -- in fact, offhand, the only European language [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > Amazonian languages have both /+/ and /@/. But, to repeat, + doesn't > correspond to anything in OzE. How is (a) relevant to English; for (b), are "Russias" and "rushes" indistinguishable to you? > >> > I have no way of knowing how to analyze your dialect! > >> > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > Or, for that matter, more than enough to cover the large majority of the > world's languages. Obviously. English has an exceptionally large number of syllabic nuclei. > Spanish, for example, selects /i, e, a, o, u, ey, ay, oy, ew, aw, ow/ > from the S-T list. (Of course, it has onglides too, but then, so does > English.) This one's easy, much easier than most Englishes! No, "it" does not select them from the S-T list. Each Spanish dialect selects them from a phonemic analysis of Spanish. > Arrernte selects /+, a, +h, ah/ > [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > different varieties of Australian), I've only written down one of them. > OK? "Only the long vowels" means 'none of the short vowels'. > >> does it, the third is the word Wells uses to indicate lexical > >> incidence, [quoted text clipped - 22 lines] > True. In each case, I'm distinguishing the "bimorphemic" expression > from the initial morpheme. Sorry if that wasn't obvious. Maybe you really did mean "bimorphemic," and it's still incomprehensible. > >> /iy/ (Wells i:) (FLEECE) -- main distinguishing feature is length > >> /ey/ (Wells VI) (FACE) -- main distinguishing feature is high front [quoted text clipped - 34 lines] > to be S-T /kjuw/ in any dialect I know. (Maybe they're homophones in > AAVE though?) "cure" is, obviously, /kyuwr/. In non-rhotic dialects, it's realized as [kjuw@] or some such. The /r/ is there because it shows up in liaison. > >> /&h/ (Wells &: -- the Australian BAD vowel -- not everyone has it) -- > >> main distinguishing feature is length. [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > What missing r's? Did someone steal them? Nonrhotic BritE doesn't have > final r's synchronically. It doesn't need them. That's beyond dispute! They don't reappear prevocalically? > > S-T is > > all those things because it is _minimal_ -- there are no redundancies, [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > are, what they sound like, and how they're related in that dialect. No? > If not, why not? Because many languages have only two heights (e.g. Turkish), and a few have four (see Hockett's Manual). > >> The most obvious point is that the three putative "phonemes" /y/, > >> /w/, [quoted text clipped - 74 lines] > Is there any known case where a sound change has converted one into the > other? (Sorry, off topic) Well, there were dialects of Hebrew with /`/ realized as [N]. (Encyclopedia Judaica, s.v. "Hebrew, Pronunciation of") > >> >> Correction invited and criticism welcomed. > >> > [quoted text clipped - 37 lines] > > Undoubtedly. Then their work is where to look for an American Descriptivist description of OzE. "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote... >> [I've snipped where I thought I could get away with it, but this's >> still [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] >> >> >> >> >> [...snip...] >> >> >> "Single phonemes": /i, e, &, a, o, u/, and, marginally, /@/. >> >> >> (That's 6 or 7; what's the eightth and nineth?) [quoted text clipped - 55 lines] > How is (a) relevant to English; for (b), are "Russias" and "rushes" > indistinguishable to you? (a) About as relevant to the phonemization of OzE as the most appropriate phonemization of any other language or dialect, including yours, is. (b) Yes. Russias, rushes, and rushers are homophones for me. In RP, where there is a similar distinction -- Wells gives <pig it> /pigIt/ vs bigot /bIg@t/, <Barton> /bA:t@n/ vs <Martin> /mA:tIn/ and several others -- the contrast, as you can see, is considered to be between /I/ and /@/. This contrast, as I've mentioned several times already, is marginal or, as Wells says, "tenuous", in OzE. In my other post (in answer to Brian IIRC) I asked whether there was indeed any reason to distinguish S-T /+/ in <Russias> from S-T /i/ in KIT etc, for Americans who make the /+/ vs /@/ distinction. As a possible test, is "rush is" in "The rush is on" distinct from both "Russias" and "rushes" for you? >> >> > I have no way of knowing how to analyze your dialect! >> >> > [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > No, "it" does not select them from the S-T list. Each Spanish dialect > selects them from a phonemic analysis of Spanish. You're right, of course, in emphasising that Spanish dialects (especially Andalusian dialects) are different in the number of syllabic nuclei they have. But THERE IS NO SUCH THING as a phonemic analysis of the Spanish language as a whole. As it turns out, the Spanish vowel system is not only simpler than the English one, but also varies less between dialects, so it's quite likely that, if you were to do a phonemic analysis of Madrid Spanish, Mexico City Spanish, and Santiago de Chile Spanish, their arrangement of vowel phonemes (their "system") would be the same, or nearly so. But that doesn't mean that it makes sense to make a list of twenty or so "things" and select 11 of them for Madrid Spanish, 14 of them for Broad Andalusian, and so on. Well, you can do it, of course, and it may even be useful, but don't pretend that that list of twenty is "a phoneme analysis of Spanish" or "a table of the phonemes of Spanish". Each dialect has its own phonemes, and you can no more say they're "the same" as you can say that my little finger is the same finger as your little finger. FWIW, the S-T table actually works _better_ for Spanish than it does for OzE (though of course it needs to be trimmed -- in particular, discard /h/ altogether -- in order to be sure it satisfies your "minimalist" criterion -- so that "there are no redundancies...") This was, if I remember correctly, exactly my position at the start of this thread, re S-T as "a phoneme analysis of English" -- that there could be no such thing. We've gone around in a big circle, and neither of us have budged one iota. In fact, you've provided lots of specific data that S-T, while it may or may not fit your dialect well, fits my dialect (and RP) not well at all. So I'm more convinced of my position than I was before. I suspect the same is true for you. [...] >> What is your definition of "analysis"? >> [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > > "Only the long vowels" means 'none of the short vowels'. Yes. "Only the long vowels and diphthongs". All the short vowels are in the monophonemic heap, above. (Immediately above this, originally. But by now there's heaps of new stuff in between. So, for the shorties, go right to the top.) >> >> does it, the third is the word Wells uses to indicate lexical >> >> incidence, and the last -- after the dash -- is the main [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > Maybe you really did mean "bimorphemic," and it's still > incomprehensible. Biphonemic, phoneme, biphonemic, phoneme, biphonemic, phoneme (repeat 100 times before I'm allowed out to play) >> >> /iy/ (Wells i:) (FLEECE) -- main distinguishing feature is >> >> length [quoted text clipped - 38 lines] > In non-rhotic dialects, it's realized as [kjuw@] or some such. The /r/ > is there because it shows up in liaison. No. In nonrhotic, that final [r] ("intrusive 'r' ") is _automatically_ introduced after certain vowels (which ones, varies a little between dialects -- in Oz it's CURE, POUR = PAW, STAR = MA, NEAR, PURR, commA = lettER), when the next morpheme (yes, "morpheme" this time!!) starts with a vowel. It has nothing whatever to do with whether or not there's a final "r" at the end of those words in some rhotic dialect way across the seas. FWIW, in my guessed S-T-isation of OzE, these are just the six /Vh/ nuclei, and /@/ (a coincidence?) (But in other BritEng dialects, there'll be qualifications -- e.g., in Cockney it also occurs after COW) Yes, I know Greg Lee has been heard to maintain that _all_ these words have a silent "r" stuck on the end (both the words that end in /r/ in your dialect, and those that don't). As a native non-rhotic, this feels incredibly weird! It's better, and consistent with the case of words ending in S-T /y/ and /w/, which similarly introduce [j] and [w] resp before a following vowel, to just say /h/ is realised as [Xr] before a vowel starting another morpheme, where X = : or @ or :@, depending on the symbol before the h, as listed above. So <saw> and <sore> _must_ both be S-T /soh/, (pace PTD), <sigh> is /say/, <toe> is /tOw/. And, <sawing> is [sO:rIN], <sighing> is [sAIjIN], <toeing> is [tVUwIN] > In non-rhotic dialects, it's realized as [kjuw@] or some such. Well, near enough; actually [kju:@]; exactly analogous to the [si:@] we spent so long on a wee while ago. >> >> /&h/ (Wells &: -- the Australian BAD vowel -- not everyone has >> >> it) -- main distinguishing feature is length. [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > > They don't reappear prevocalically? See above. 'R's appear prevocally, even in words where YOU don't have them. >> > S-T is >> > all those things because it is _minimal_ -- there are no [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > Because many languages have only two heights (e.g. Turkish), And NZ English. > and a few have four (see Hockett's Manual). Arguably, there are some hundreds of Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan languages with five heights: i u I U e o E O & or a (Since the distinction between i and I, e and E, and so on, doesn't correspond in these languages to tense/lax, or long/short, etc, as in many languages elsewhere in the world (in particular many European languages), an alternative explanation has been resorted to, vis the feature of +/-ATR (advanced tongue root). Even though, in many of these African languages "phonological and phonetic evidence [...] for the feature [+/-ATR] is much less secure" (Clements). This reduces "heights" to three, the same way as tense/lax and/or long/short does in most varieties of English.) Anyway, what you are, I think, saying is that three degrees of height is, empirically, probably the most common situation world-wide, including most varieties of English. Therefore, whether or not we have a hypothesis as to what the reason for this phenomenon might be (why it's not binary, high vs low, the way that works so well for other features), three heights should be incorporated in the phonemic model anyway, at least for these languages -- as S-T does for one of them. The same, though maybe with a little less justification, with front/middle/back. Am I completely wrong here in this summary of what you're getting at (or at least an important part of it)? >> >> The most obvious point is that the three putative "phonemes" /y/, >> >> /w/, >> >> /h/ aren't consistent in what they do. It's impossible [quoted text clipped - 22 lines] >> > undisputed diphthongs, you make use of them elsewhere in >> > the analysis. >> >> Sure, there's a pattern there, and if each of these digraphs was >> >> considered to represent a single phoneme, one could live with the [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >> >> symbolized by three different letters, "y", "w", "h", in different >> >> cases. >> > Length happens to be the phonetic realization of those phonemes in >> > some syllabic nuclei. [quoted text clipped - 34 lines] > Well, there were dialects of Hebrew with /`/ realized as [N]. > (Encyclopedia Judaica, s.v. "Hebrew, Pronunciation of") Near enough. Thanks. [....] John. johna...@bigpond.com wrote: > "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote... > >> > Must I cite yet again the magnificent minimal pair "Russias" and > >> > "rushes"? The former has /@/, the latter has /+/. [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > between /I/ and /@/. This contrast, as I've mentioned several times > already, is marginal or, as Wells says, "tenuous", in OzE. No one would suppose that the "it" in "pig it" (whatever that might be) is [+] or /+/. "Barton" and "Martin" have syllabic n, no intervening vowel at all. > In my other post (in answer to Brian IIRC) I asked whether there was > indeed any reason to distinguish S-T /+/ in <Russias> from S-T /i/ in > KIT etc, for Americans who make the /+/ vs /@/ distinction. As a > possible test, is "rush is" in "The rush is on" distinct from both > "Russias" and "rushes" for you? Can't tell, it's also reduced. > >> >> > I have no way of knowing how to analyze your dialect! > >> >> > [quoted text clipped - 33 lines] > Madrid Spanish, 14 of them for Broad Andalusian, and so on. Well, you > can do it, of course, and it may even be useful, but don't pretend that Wouldn't it be 5 for Spanish? > that list of twenty is "a phoneme analysis of Spanish" or "a table of > the phonemes of Spanish". Each dialect has its own phonemes, and you > can no more say they're "the same" as you can say that my little finger > > is the same finger as your little finger. Read Smith's Morphophone article. > FWIW, the S-T table actually works _better_ for Spanish than it does > for [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > > than I was before. I suspect the same is true for you. Read the Morphophone article. > [...] > >> [quoted text clipped - 102 lines] > way > across the seas. So Oz is more like Boston than like RP. (Remember Kennedy talking about Cuber all the time.) > FWIW, in my guessed S-T-isation of OzE, these are just the six /Vh/ > nuclei, and /@/ (a coincidence?) (But in other BritEng dialects, [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > > And, <sawing> is [sO:rIN], <sighing> is [sAIjIN], <toeing> is [tVUwIN] "Sawing" and "soaring" are identical? > > In non-rhotic dialects, it's realized as [kjuw@] or some such. > [quoted text clipped - 68 lines] > The same, though maybe with a little less justification, with > front/middle/back. Of course the heights are binary -- [+/-high] and [+/-low] yield 3 or 4 heights. > Am I completely wrong here in this summary of what you're getting at > (or > at least an important part of it)? I don't see anything immediately objectionable ... > >> >> The most obvious point is that the three putative "phonemes" /y/, > >> >> /w/, >> >> /h/ aren't consistent in what they do. It's impossible [quoted text clipped - 72 lines] > > Near enough. Thanks. On 11 Jan 2007 15:52:40 -0800, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote in <news:1168559559.720844.303360@p59g2000hsd.googlegroups.com> in alt.usage.english,sci.lang: [...] > "pig it" (whatever that might be) To live in more slovenly conditions than one normally would, or simply to live in messy or slovenly conditions. [...] Brian "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote... >> [I've snipped where I thought I could get away with it, but this's >> still [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] >> >> >> >> >> [...snip...] >> >> >> "Single phonemes": /i, e, &, a, o, u/, and, marginally, /@/. >> >> >> (That's 6 or 7; what's the eightth and nineth?) [quoted text clipped - 55 lines] > How is (a) relevant to English; for (b), are "Russias" and "rushes" > indistinguishable to you? (a) About as relevant to the phonemization of OzE as the most appropriate phonemization of any other language or dialect, including yours, is. (b) Yes. Russias, rushes, and rushers are homophones for me. In RP, where there is a similar distinction -- Wells gives <pig it> /pigIt/ vs bigot /bIg@t/, <Barton> /bA:t@n/ vs <Martin> /mA:tIn/ and several others -- the contrast, as you can see, is considered to be between /I/ and /@/. This contrast, as I've mentioned several times already, is marginal or, as Wells says, "tenuous", in OzE. In my other post (in answer to Brian IIRC) I asked whether there was indeed any reason to distinguish S-T /+/ in <Russias> from S-T /i/ in KIT etc, for Americans who make the /+/ vs /@/ distinction. As a possible test, is "rush is" in "The rush is on" distinct from both "Russias" and "rushes" for you? >> >> > I have no way of knowing how to analyze your dialect! >> >> > [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > No, "it" does not select them from the S-T list. Each Spanish dialect > selects them from a phonemic analysis of Spanish. You're right, of course, in emphasising that Spanish dialects (especially Andalusian dialects) are different in the number of syllabic nuclei they have. But THERE IS NO SUCH THING as a phonemic analysis of the Spanish language as a whole. As it turns out, the Spanish vowel system is not only simpler than the English one, but also varies less between dialects, so it's quite likely that, if you were to do a phonemic analysis of Madrid Spanish, Mexico City Spanish, and Santiago de Chile Spanish, their arrangement of vowel phonemes (their "system") would be the same, or nearly so. But that doesn't mean that it makes sense to make a list of twenty or so "things" and select 11 of them for Madrid Spanish, 14 of them for Broad Andalusian, and so on. Well, you can do it, of course, and it may even be useful, but don't pretend that that list of twenty is "a phoneme analysis of Spanish" or "a table of the phonemes of Spanish". Each dialect has its own phonemes, and you can no more say they're "the same" as you can say that my little finger is the same finger as your little finger. FWIW, the S-T table actually works _better_ for Spanish than it does for OzE (though of course it needs to be trimmed -- in particular, discard /h/ altogether -- in order to be sure it satisfies your "minimalist" criterion -- so that "there are no redundancies, and every extant contrast is accounted for.") This was, if I remember correctly, exactly my position at the start of this thread, re S-T as "a phoneme analysis of English" -- that there could be no such thing. We've gone around in a big circle, and neither of us have budged one iota. In fact, you've provided lots of specific data that S-T, while it may or may not fit your dialect well, fits my dialect (and RP) not well at all, so I'm more convinced of my position than I was before. I suspect the same is true for you. [...] >> What is your definition of "analysis"? >> [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > > "Only the long vowels" means 'none of the short vowels'. Yes. "Only the long vowels and diphthongs". All the short vowels are in the monophonemic heap, above. (Immediately above this, originally. But by now there's heaps of new stuff in between. So, for the shorties, go right to the top.) >> >> does it, the third is the word Wells uses to indicate lexical >> >> incidence, and the last -- after the dash -- is the main [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > Maybe you really did mean "bimorphemic," and it's still > incomprehensible. Biphonemic, phoneme, biphonemic, phoneme, biphonemic, phoneme (repeat 100 times before I'm allowed out to play) >> >> /iy/ (Wells i:) (FLEECE) -- main distinguishing feature is >> >> length [quoted text clipped - 44 lines] > In non-rhotic dialects, it's realized as [kjuw@] or some such. The /r/ > is there because it shows up in liaison. No. In nonrhotic, that final [r] ("intrusive 'r' ") is _automatically_ introduced after certain vowels (which ones, varies a little between dialects -- in Oz it's CURE, POUR = PAW, STAR = MA, NEAR = MARIA, PURR, commA = lettER), when the next morpheme (yes, "morpheme" this time!!) starts with a vowel. It has nothing whatever to do with whether or not there's a final "r" at the end of those words in some rhotic dialect way across the seas. FWIW, in my guessed S-Tisation of OzE, these are just the six /Vh/ nuclei, and /@/ (a coincidence?) (But in other BritEng dialects, there'll be qualifications -- e.g., in Cockney it also occurs after COW) Yes, I know Greg Lee has been heard to maintain that _all_ these words have a silent "r" stuck on the end (both the words that end in /r/ in your dialect, and those that don't). As a native non-rhotic, this feels incredibly wierd! It's better, and consistent with the case of words ending in S-T /y/ and /w/, which similarly introduce [j] and [w] resp before a following vowel, to just say /h/ is realised as [Xr] before a vowel starting another morpheme, where X = : or @ or :@, depending on the symbol before the h, as listed above. So <saw> and <sore> _must_ both be S-T /soh/, (pace PTD), <sigh> is /say/, <toe> is /tOw/. And, <sawing> is [sO:rIN], <sighing> is [sAIjIN], <toeing> is [tVUwIN] > In non-rhotic dialects, it's realized as [kjuw@] or some such. Well, near enough; actually [kju:@]; exactly analogous to the [si:@] we spent so long on a wee while ago. >> >> /&h/ (Wells &: -- the Australian BAD vowel -- not everyone has >> >> it) -- [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > > They don't reappear prevocalically? See above. 'R's appear prevocally, even in words where YOU don't have them. >> > S-T is >> > all those things because it is _minimal_ -- there are no [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > > Because many languages have only two heights (e.g. Turkish), And NZ English. > and a few have four (see Hockett's Manual). Arguably, there are some hundreds of Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan languages with five heights: i u I U e o E O & or a (Since the distinction between i and I, e and E, and so on, doesn't correspond in these languages to tense/lax, or long/short, etc, as in many languages elsewhere in the world (in particular many European languages), an alternative explanation has been resorted to, vis the feature of +/-ATR (advanced tongue root). Even though, in many of these African languages "phonological and phonetic evidence [...] for the feature [+/-ATR] is much less secure" (Clements). This reduces "heights" to three, the same way as tense/lax and/or long/short does in most varieties of English.) Anyway, what you are, I think, saying is that three degrees of height is, empirically, probably the most common situation world-wide, including most varieties of English. Therefore, whether or not we have a hypothesis as to what the reason for this phenomenon might be (why it's not binary, high vs low, the way that works so well for other features), three heights should be incorporated in the phonemic model anyway, at least for these languages -- as S-T does for one of them. The same, though maybe with a little less justification, with front/middle/back. Am I completely wrong here in this summary of what you're getting at (or at least an important part of it)? >> >> The most obvious point is that the three putative "phonemes" /y/, >> >> /w/, >> >> /h/ aren't consistent in what they do. It's impossible [quoted text clipped - 93 lines] > Well, there were dialects of Hebrew with /`/ realized as [N]. > (Encyclopedia Judaica, s.v. "Hebrew, Pronunciation of") Near enough. Thanks. [....] John. > It's the way it works for Wells (haven't read Gimson so can't comment > thereon). Here's what he says (Accents of English 1, p 50): "A [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > from that undergone by the phonemes of which, under a bimorphemic > analysis, they would be regarded as consisting." A vowel in a diphthong has an adjacent vowel (the other vowel in the diphthong), so even if viewed biphonemically, it has a difference in context to explain its difference in historical development. > > Is there no similar case of divergence/ convergence of high front > > vowels and diphthongs? How about: the pre <r> e's in cereal, serious [quoted text clipped - 29 lines] > they represent a divergence, as opposed to a convergence for > those who don't distinguish the three vowels? Serious has /iy/, cereal has /i/, seer has /iyR/ (or however you phonemicize that vowel). I.e., [ij], [I], [ij@r] respectively. > Incidentally, for what it's worth if anything, there's also > a "seir" in _NSOED_, and it also has the "i" of "pig": [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > Indo-Pacific, Scomberomorus commerson, of the > family Scombridae. Also called serra. > Serious has /iy/, cereal has /i/, seer has /iyR/ (or however you > phonemicize that vowel). > I.e., [ij], [I], [ij@r] respectively. Would you describe [ij] as being different from [i:]? For example, can [ij[ possibly be described as a diphthong from [i] to somewhere near [I]? > > Serious has /iy/, cereal has /i/, seer has /iyR/ (or however you > > phonemicize that vowel). [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > [ij[ possibly be described as a diphthong from [i] to somewhere near > [I]? /iy/ tensens, so maybe [Ij] would be more precise. Certainly not [iI] > > > Serious has /iy/, cereal has /i/, seer has /iyR/ (or however you > > > phonemicize that vowel). [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > /iy/ tensens, so maybe [Ij] would be more precise. Comprehension dawns! Thank you very much; I'd been trying to figure out what it was. Thanks to Nathan Sanders too for helping me figure out that what I called my two ei diphthongs were actually the same diphthong in two lengths. > Certainly not [iI] > So, I would turn your question around and ask if there are > speakers for whom "seer" is not "sere" is not "sear", or for > whom "serious", "cereal", and "seer" have difference vowels > before the "r" sound. And if there are such speakers, do > they represent a divergence, as opposed to a convergence for > those who don't distinguish the three vowels? Seer is not sere for me, but sere and sear are homophones and have the same vowel as serious, cereal, and weary. SignatureMary Loomer (aka Erilar) ---------------------------------------- Es ist nichts schrecklicher als eine tatige Unwissenheit. -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (There's nothing worse than ignorance in action.) Erilar's Cave Annex: http://www.airstreamcomm.net/~erilarlo > Is there no similar case of divergence/ convergence of high front > vowels and diphthongs? How about: the pre <r> e's in cereal, serious > and seer? The case most familiar to me is "mirror", which apparently rhymes with "nearer" in most AmE dialects (although in TexE it might [also?] rhyme with "mere"), but is distinct in at least some East Coast cities (New York [LCIA], Bwahston) and in much if not all of the UK. SignatureSalvatore Volatile > > Is there no similar case of divergence/ convergence of high front > > vowels and diphthongs? How about: the pre <r> e's in cereal, serious [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > with "mere"), but is distinct in at least some East Coast cities (New > York [LCIA], Bwahston) and in much if not all of the UK. Thanks for the examples; they seem much better than the ones I chose. Are these your personal observations or can I look them up somewhere? What I'm really after is some written material I can read, similar to writeups about "marry merry mary". In my two most commonly used registers, I have: mirror [mIr.@] [mIr@] nearer [nj@:r.@] [ni:r@] mere [mj@:] [mi:r] > > > Is there no similar case of divergence/ convergence of high front > > > vowels and diphthongs? How about: the pre <r> e's in cereal, serious [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > with "mere"), but is distinct in at least some East Coast cities (New > > York [LCIA], Bwahston) and in much if not all of the UK. Any takers for cirrus clouds? > Thanks for the examples; they seem much better than the ones I chose. Are you going to add to your collection with the hurry/furry distinction (about the same distribution as mirror/nearer, I think), sorry/story (more complicated--look up "orange class" if you haven't studied this one), and the dreaded horse/hoarse? Interesting pairs for the first two might be occurring/occurrence and abhorring/abhorrence; cf. deterring/deterrence. Since you told Rob Bannister you have different r's in "tarry" (sailor) and "tarry" (a while), I'm offering 3-1 you have a similar distinction in "occurring" and "occurrence", 2-1 for "airy" and "dairy", and even money for "clearing" and "clearance". In nickels. > Are these your personal observations or can I look them up somewhere? > What I'm really after is some written material I can read, similar to > writeups about "marry merry mary". In my two most commonly used > registers, I have: > mirror [mIr.@] [mIr@] > nearer [nj@:r.@] [ni:r@] > mere [mj@:] [mi:r] Here I am offering bets when you continue to demonstrate that I have no, absolutely no intuition for Malayali English. SignatureJerry Friedman > Any takers for cirrus clouds? [sI*@s] > Are you going to add to your collection with the hurry/furry > distinction (about the same distribution as mirror/nearer, I think), [har.I] [f@:RI] (here, I use my 3rd r, an approximant) > sorry/story (more complicated--look up "orange class" if you haven't > studied this one), and the dreaded horse/hoarse? No dread; they're nearly as different as my [O:] and [u:] (haul and hooligan). I have a UK [O:] in "hoarse" but [A.:] in "horse" (a wee bit more closed than a US cot/caught merged vowel). It's not quite a drawled "hoss" since I make it slightly rhotic. > Interesting pairs for > the first two might be occurring/occurrence and abhorring/abhorrence; > cf. deterring/deterrence. > Since you told Rob Bannister you have different r's in "tarry" (sailor) Did I? I'd have meant "covered in tar", not "sailor". > and "tarry" (a while), I'm offering 3-1 you have a similar distinction > in "occurring" and "occurrence", 2-1 for "airy" and "dairy", and even > money for "clearing" and "clearance". In nickels. You lose: [ok@r.iN] [ok@r.Ens] both have trills [E@*I] [dE@*I] both have taps [klj@:r.IN] [klj@:r.@ns] both have trills > > mirror [mIr.@] [mIr@] > > nearer [nj@:r.@] [nIjr@] > > mere [mj@:] [mIjr] > > Here I am offering bets when you continue to demonstrate that I have > no, absolutely no intuition for Malayali English. I haven't given the pronunciations in my Malayali English register here; these are my approximations of British and Merkan pronunciation; I've corrected the second column to use PTD's transcription [Ij]. > > Any takers for cirrus clouds? > [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > more closed than a US cot/caught merged vowel). It's not quite a > drawled "hoss" since I make it slightly rhotic. Peter Daniels's comment partially explains my use of "dreaded". Also, we've had some acrimony in a.u.e. on the subject (or in discussions that started with the subject). > > Interesting pairs for > > the first two might be occurring/occurrence and abhorring/abhorrence; [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > Did I? I'd have meant "covered in tar", not "sailor". Sorry, I meant that too. It was a possibly over-terse way to say "'tarry' as in 'tarry sailor' and 'tarry' as in 'tarry a while'." > > and "tarry" (a while), I'm offering 3-1 you have a similar distinction > > in "occurring" and "occurrence", 2-1 for "airy" and "dairy", and even > > money for "clearing" and "clearance". In nickels. > > You lose: I owe you $0.30 U.S. > [ok@r.iN] [ok@r.Ens] both have trills According to the NSOED and some people in a.u.e., RP has [A.'k@riN] but [A.'kVrEns] (or maybe the unaccented vowels are schwas--all I can remember is my astonishment that the accented vowels are different). Same for [dI't@riN] but [dI'tErEns] and [&b'hOriN] but [&b'hA.rEns]. I believe this is widespread in Britain. I'm surprised that your pronunciation doesn't have this distinction. > [E@*I] [dE@*I] both have taps > [klj@:r.IN] [klj@:r.@ns] both have trills I was hoping for some evidence that your tarry/tarry pair is the result of different r's having to do with morpheme boundaries. Can't win 'em all. > > > mirror [mIr.@] [mIr@] > > > nearer [nj@:r.@] [nIjr@] [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > here; these are my approximations of British and Merkan pronunciation; > I've corrected the second column to use PTD's transcription [Ij] Well, I can't comment on British pronunciation, but non-rhoticism is definitely in the minority in the U.S., and people with non-rhotic "mirror" and "nearer" but rhotic "mere" is only a part of that minority. It sounds African-American to me, but unfortunately I've lost most of my AAVE intuition, so don't trust me. SignatureJerry Friedman > I owe you $0.30 U.S. Once, John D Rockefeller dialed 0 on a payphone to inform the operator that the phone had swallowed his picayune (some small denomination coin). She asked for his name and address so that the phone company could mail him the money. "Ah, forget it", he said. > According to the NSOED and some people in a.u.e., RP has [A.'k@riN] but > [A.'kVrEns] (or maybe the unaccented vowels are schwas--all I can > remember is my astonishment that the accented vowels are different). > Same for [dI't@riN] but [dI'tErEns] and [&b'hOriN] but [&b'hA.rEns]. I > believe this is widespread in Britain. I'm surprised that your > pronunciation doesn't have this distinction. Indian pronunciations can have the distinction to the British ear but Indians consider it a closed a. For example, when the British first wrote <Brahmin> whereas the Indian first wrote Brahman in a Latin script, they were writing the same vowel. There was some such situation in Romanian; a vowel was once written <a>, then it was written <i> and then there was debate over whether to change it back to <a>. > > > > mirror [mIr.@] [mIr@] > > > > nearer [nj@:r.@] [nIjr@] [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > Well, I can't comment on British pronunciation, Well, it is upper register Indian English but people often get confused when they hear the term "Indian English"; they think it can only describe some sing-song pidgin variety of English. > but non-rhoticism is > definitely in the minority in the U.S., and people with non-rhotic > "mirror" and "nearer" but rhotic "mere" is only a part of that > minority. It sounds African-American to me, but unfortunately I've > lost most of my AAVE intuition, so don't trust me. AAV has [do:] for "door"; I haven't heard non-rhotics with that vowel quality in any other English, so no other English seems to sound like AAV. > Indian pronunciations can have the distinction to the British ear but > Indians consider it a closed a. For example, when the British first > wrote <Brahmin> whereas the Indian first wrote Brahman in a Latin > script, they were writing the same vowel. There was some such situation > in Romanian; a vowel was once written <a>, then it was written <i> and > then there was debate over whether to change it back to <a>. Are you talking about the vowel <î>, which is written thus except in 'Românija' and derivatives what it is <â>? Colin > > Indian pronunciations can have the distinction to the British ear but > > Indians consider it a closed a. For example, when the British first [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > Are you talking about the vowel <î>, which is written thus except in > 'Românija' and derivatives what it is <â>? Yes. > > > > Is there no similar case of divergence/ convergence of high front > > > > vowels and diphthongs? How about: the pre <r> e's in cereal, serious [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > Any takers for cirrus clouds? cirrus goes with cereal (and mirror), against Sirius, serial (and merer 'more mere') > > Thanks for the examples; they seem much better than the ones I chose. > [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > the first two might be occurring/occurrence and abhorring/abhorrence; > cf. deterring/deterrence. hurry goes with but, furry varies freely between but and purse sorry/story is cot/caught (respectively) orange goes with sorry but isn't unacceptable with story horse/hoarse are identical and I have yet to encounter anyone who can demonstrate the difference for me naturally the three -ences show no difference > Since you told Rob Bannister you have different r's in "tarry" (sailor) > and "tarry" (a while), I'm offering 3-1 you have a similar distinction > in "occurring" and "occurrence", 2-1 for "airy" and "dairy", and even > money for "clearing" and "clearance". In nickels. since you're focusing on his strange r's, I have nothing to say there, but tar+ry and tarry are cot vs. cat. > hurry goes with but, furry varies freely between but and purse Who has furry going with but? Do they pronounce "but" as Bert or do they really have [@]/[V] in furry? > horse/hoarse are identical In one of my registers, I have [hA.:s], [hO:s], [kA.t.], [kA.:t.], [kO:t] for horse, hoarse, cot, caught, court. It's much more common for them to be [hA:.s], [ho:s], [kA.:t.], [kA.:t.] (homophone) and [ko:t.] in Indian English, though. Note that I don't have a postalveolar in "court" unlike in the others. > and I have yet to encounter anyone who can > demonstrate the difference for me naturally Anyone who can speak with both Merkan and British accents (like the Texan Hillerman who played the Englishman Higgins on Magnum PI) should be able to naturally produce long open O's with two qualities although whether they actually do produce both while speaking a single register is an open question. > since you're focusing on his strange r's, I have nothing to say there, > but tar+ry and tarry are cot vs. cat. I've only heard of Jack-tar = sailor; I haven't heard of tar by itself (or tarry) with a meaning of "sailor" > > hurry goes with but, furry varies freely between but and purse > > Who has furry going with but? Do they pronounce "but" as Bert or do > they really have [@]/[V] in furry? ?? Why would you put an [r] into but?? Moreover, Philadelphia "very" has purse. > > horse/hoarse are identical > [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > whether they actually do produce both while speaking a single register > is an open question. Which says absolutely nothing about the alleged dialect in which horse and hoarse do not rhyme. > > since you're focusing on his strange r's, I have nothing to say there, > > but tar+ry and tarry are cot vs. cat. > > I've only heard of Jack-tar = sailor; I haven't heard of tar by itself > (or tarry) with a meaning of "sailor" You don't know *H.M.S. Pinafore*? Pity! > You don't know *H.M.S. Pinafore*? Pity! That's the one where Josephine was stuck on a tar. SignatureRay UK -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I am using the free version of SPAMfighter for private users. It has removed 1020 spam emails to date. Paying users do not have this message in their emails. Try SPAMfighter for free now! > > You don't know *H.M.S. Pinafore*? Pity! > > That's the one where Josephine was stuck on a tar. You'd need perfect pitch for that. > > > You don't know *H.M.S. Pinafore*? Pity! > > > > That's the one where Josephine was stuck on a tar. > > You'd need perfect pitch for that. But she doesn't need that. All she needs to watch out for is where he drops his anchor. > > > hurry goes with but, furry varies freely between but and purse > > Who has furry going with but? Do they pronounce "but" as Bert or do > > they really have [@]/[V] in furry? > ?? Why would you put an [r] into but?? I wouldn't; I'm asking about folks who supposedly have the same vowel in but and furry. Besides, I don't mean [r]; I'm using <er> for a pure vowel somewhere between @ and an IPA ramshorn. > Moreover, Philadelphia "very" has purse. I'm lost again. In my Merkan register, purse has a vocalic - something like the long Finland Swedish [OE:] in the 2nd to last formant chart on this page. file:///home/me/PHONETICS/vowel_charts.html > > > horse/hoarse are identical > > In one of my registers, I have [hA.:s], [hO:s], [kA.t.], [kA.:t.], [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > Which says absolutely nothing about the alleged dialect in which horse > and hoarse do not rhyme. I've already said everything that can be said about it? What more is there to be said? > > I've only heard of Jack-tar = sailor; I haven't heard of tar by itself > > (or tarry) with a meaning of "sailor" > You don't know *H.M.S. Pinafore*? Pity! I didn't know anyone who had the RCA Camden soundtrack. The only lines I've heard in India from soundtracks before Jesus Christ Superstar are "you're looking swell ..." and "she's broad where a broad should be broad". > > > I've only heard of Jack-tar = sailor; I haven't heard of tar by itself > > > (or tarry) with a meaning of "sailor" > > You don't know *H.M.S. Pinafore*? Pity! > > I didn't know anyone who had the RCA Camden soundtrack. The only lines > I've heard in India from soundtracks before Jesus Christ Superstar are > "you're looking swell ..." and "she's broad where a broad should be > broad". Is there a movie of HMS Pinafore? I didn't know that. If you know Hello, Dolly and South Pacific only from the movie versions, that's a shame. > > > You don't know *H.M.S. Pinafore*? Pity! > > I didn't know anyone who had the RCA Camden soundtrack. The only lines > > I've heard in India from soundtracks before Jesus Christ Superstar are > > "you're looking swell ..." and "she's broad where a broad should be > > broad". > Is there a movie of HMS Pinafore? I didn't know that. There's a soundtrack of the opera. In the case of JCS, there was a soundtrack of the movie too, which was most unfortunate because it ruined the market for the Opera soundtrack. > If you know Hello, Dolly and South Pacific only from the movie > versions, that's a shame. I know them only from the soundtrack (record). > > > > You don't know *H.M.S. Pinafore*? Pity! > > > I didn't know anyone who had the RCA Camden soundtrack. The only lines [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > > I know them only from the soundtrack (record). What do you mean by "soundtrack"? A soundtrack album can only be from a movie or TV show. A recording of an oper(ett)a is a recording. A recording of a Broadway show is an original cast album. Jesus Christ Superstar was a rock album long before it was ever a movie or a stage show. It has never been and never will be an opera. > What do you mean by "soundtrack"? A soundtrack album can only be from a > movie or TV show. Best of Broadway - American Musical Soundtrack http://www.stlyrics.com/b/bestofbroadway-americanmusical.htm > Jesus Christ Superstar was a rock album long before it was ever a movie > or a stage show. You're right! I didn't know that. > It has never been and never will be an opera. Jesus Christ Superstar is a rock opera by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Christ_Superstar <ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com> wrote... >> Jesus Christ Superstar was a rock album long before it was ever a >> movie [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > Webber. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Christ_Superstar And "2001" is a space opera. And "Neighbours" is a soap opera. And ... well, I'm sure you get Peter's point by now. J. > <ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com> wrote... > > Jesus Christ Superstar is a rock opera by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd > > Webber. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Christ_Superstar > > And "2001" is a space opera. And "Neighbours" is a soap opera. And ... > well, I'm sure you get Peter's point by now. Opera is plural of opus:-) <ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com> wrote... >> <ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com> wrote... > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > Opera is plural of opus:-) So Wikipedia says. But it's wrong. In English, the plural of opus is opuses. J. >> Is there no similar case of divergence/ convergence of high front >> vowels and diphthongs? How about: the pre <r> e's in cereal, serious [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >with "mere"), but is distinct in at least some East Coast cities (New >York [LCIA], Bwahston) and in much if not all of the UK. Yes. In most of the UK "nearer" rhymes with "Keira" and "Vera", while "mirror" rhymes with with "sirrah". [sci.lang removed for the usual reasons] SignatureArchie Valparaiso > Is there no similar case of divergence/ convergence of high front > vowels and diphthongs? How about: the pre <r> e's in cereal, serious > and seer? Note from the Wisconsinite here: seer has its stress on the longer e in front. Its final "vowel" is more off-glide than the er in cereal and serious SignatureMary Loomer (aka Erilar) ---------------------------------------- Es ist nichts schrecklicher als eine tätige Unwissenheit. -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (There's nothing worse than ignorance in action.) Erilar's Cave Annex: http://www.airstreamcomm.net/~erilarlo |
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