[Lexicog] new nosey word

[Ron Moe]

In my dialect of English it is impossible for there to be a vowel between
the 't' 'l' and 'd' in 'bottled' since the tip of the tongue never leaves
the roof of the mouth. Merriam-Webster is either wrong or describing some
other dialect of English. By contrast the tip of the tongue does drop
between the 'l' and the 'd' in 'clued'. I've noticed numerous times that
so-called phonetic transcriptions put a schwa before a syllabic 'l' 'r' or
nasal. But there is a distinct difference between the sequence of 'k' and
'l' in 'cull' and 'clue'. The first is [k*l] and the second [klu] (where *
is schwa). Similarly there is no difference in pronunciation between 'burr'
(thorny seed) and 'brrr' (idiophone for 'cold'). Both are [bR] (where R is a
syllabic r). My native speaker intuition tells me there is no vowel in these
words. English spelling is a poor guide to phonetics. If I was to write all
these words phonemically, I would spell them /batld, klud, k*l, klu, br,
br/. Similarly 'button' is /b*tn/, 'burned' is /brnd/ with a syllabic 'r',
'bull' is /bl/ (notice the contrast with 'cull' /k*l/), 'hackle' is /hAkl/
(where A is front, near-open). Unfortunately I have no minimal pairs to
prove a phonemic contrast between C*S and CS (where S is a syllabic).

There is also a frequent contrast between a words spoken in isolation, in
slow speech, and in rapid speech. Which of course creates problems for us
when we want to indicate pronunciation in a dictionary. In my dialect the
words 'been' and 'Ben' are pronounced the same in isolation. But 'been'
shortens to [bn] in 'I've been wanting to' [ayvbn wANt*] (where A is
nasalized [a] and N is the velar nasal). 'Ben' never shortens in this way.
So has anyone developed a policy for indicating such pronunciation variation
in their dictionary?

Ron Moe

-----Original Message-----
From: Preslav Ivanov Nakov [mailto:nakov at eecs.berkeley.edu]
Sent: Sunday, April 11, 2004 1:14 PM
To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Lexicog] new nosey word


I can clearly here a sort of vowel between "t" and "l" (if you want, "a
short voiceless vowel"). You can consult the Merriam-Webster Online
Dictionary (www.webster.com), you can see that even the form "bottling",
which doesn't need a vowel between t and l, could well have one:
/'bä-t&l-i[ng], 'bät-li[ng]/

A similar thing happens in French, e.g. "prendre". Where they add some sort
of vowel at the end, after the "e". BTW the Cyrillic letter for the same
"discriminated" Slavonic vowel used to be written at the end of the words
ending with a consonant until 60 years ago. And it used to be pronounced
centuries ago.

I guess the main thing it: are these kinds of short vowels a vowel or not?
To me it is more a question of definition.

Preslav

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Kirk [mailto:peterkirk at qaya.org]

>
English, or at least some dialects of it, also has syllabic L and R
sounds, as well as nasals. Try saying "bottled". I think everyone would
agree that this word has two syllables, but there is not really a
distinct vowel sound between the T and the L, and certainly none after
the L.



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