[Lexicog] new nosey word, but really phonetics

[Mike_Cahill at SIL.ORG]

Try these: "law-abiding", "cougar" . "Burr" and "brr" are homophonous for
me. When you have a low stressed vowel that continues into another one, or
a back vowel that precedes a back consonant, do you still get any hint of
schwa? I don't. Ahh, dialects .... But perhaps we digress from lexicography
a bit...

Mike Cahill



|---------+--------------------------->
|         |           rrhodes at cogsci.b|
|         |           erkeley.edu     |
|         |                           |
|         |           04/14/2004 07:21|
|         |           PM              |
|         |           Please respond  |
|         |           to              |
|         |           lexicographylist|
|         |                           |
|---------+--------------------------->
  >---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
  |                                                                                                                                             |
  |        To:      lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com                                                                                            |
  |        cc:                                                                                                                                  |
  |        Subject: RE: [Lexicog]  new nosey word, but really phonetics                                                                         |
  >---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|



I'm going to stick my neck out again and say something controversial. I
believe that EVERY stressed vowel in American English is diphthongized, or
potentially diphthongized. We all know this about mid and high tense
vowels. But for me, all stressed lax vowels move towards schwa unless they
are in shortening contexts, quickly pronounced. This includes vowels for
which it is particularly hard to hear, /a/, open o (in those dialects that
continue that contrast), caret, and syllabic r. For those of you who are
native speakers, notice that when you pronounce words like, wad, bawd, bud,
and bird, you can feel the body of tongue move upwards toward the end of
the vowel before the tip flips up. And just to show it's not part of the
transition to the d, pronounce law and you'll feel the same motion. It's
that ever so slight diphthong that distinguishes burr from brrr for me.


Rich Rhodes


At 5:01 PM -0600 4/12/04, Koontz John E wrote:

      I am reminded of an incident in a class in which a brand new
      sonograph was
      demonstrated to us as we passed through a lab.  We did various
      extemporaneous tests.  A French student was asked to pronounce a word
      with
      a nasal vowel, which chanced to come between two stops.  Visible in
      the
      sonogram was a short but distinct n.  She was horrified and repeated
      it
      several times without being able to eliminate it.  Still, I feel sure
      it
      was a perfectly valid nasal vowel.  In short, phonetic realization is
      not
      a segmental analysis.  I feel certain that there are vowel-less
      syllables
      in various languages, though their sonograms might sometimes surprise
      us.
      Whether in all cases one might want to call the resulting syllables
      vowelless in a segmental analsys would depend on the language and the
      analysis.  In some cases yes, in others no.  (Mostly no, I would
      guess in
      English, though the lack of the vowel is probably real enough
      phonetically.)

      Conversely, there might be quite real phonetic vowels that would
      *not* be
      considered vowels for purposes of a segmental analysis.

      I'm pretty sure there's nothing of segmental significance between k
      and t
      in Russian kto.



--

******************************************************************

 Richard A. Rhodes
 Department of Linguistics
 University of California
 Berkeley, CA 94720-2650
 Voice (510) 643-7325
 FAX (510) 643-5688

******************************************************************

Yahoo! Groups Links
      To visit your group on the web, go to:
      http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lexicographylist/

      To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
      lexicographylist-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com

      Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.






Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lexicographylist/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
     lexicographylist-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
     http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/