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--></style><title>RE: [Lexicog] new nosey word, but really
phonetics</title></head><body>
<div>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,<i> wad</i>,<i> bawd</i>,<i>
bud</i>, and<i> bird</i>, 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<i> d</i>, pronounce<i> law</i>
and you'll feel the same motion. It's that ever so slight diphthong
that distinguishes<i> burr</i> from<i> brrr</i> for me.</div>
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<div><br></div>
<div>Rich Rhodes</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>At 5:01 PM -0600 4/12/04, Koontz John E wrote:</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br>
I am reminded of an incident in a class in which a brand new sonograph
was<br>
demonstrated to us as we passed through a lab. We did
various<br>
extemporaneous tests. A French student was asked to pronounce a
word with<br>
a nasal vowel, which chanced to come between two stops. Visible
in the<br>
sonogram was a short but distinct n. She was horrified and
repeated it<br>
several times without being able to eliminate it. Still, I feel
sure it<br>
was a perfectly valid nasal vowel. In short, phonetic
realization is not<br>
a segmental analysis. I feel certain that there are vowel-less
syllables<br>
in various languages, though their sonograms might sometimes surprise
us.<br>
Whether in all cases one might want to call the resulting
syllables<br>
vowelless in a segmental analsys would depend on the language and
the<br>
analysis. In some cases yes, in others no. (Mostly no, I
would guess in<br>
English, though the lack of the vowel is probably real enough<br>
phonetically.)<br>
<br>
Conversely, there might be quite real phonetic vowels that would *not*
be<br>
considered vowels for purposes of a segmental analysis.<br>
<br>
I'm pretty sure there's nothing of segmental significance between k
and t</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>in Russian kto.<br>
</blockquote>
<div><br></div>
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<div
>******************************************************************<br
>
<br>
Richard A. Rhodes<br>
Department of Linguistics<br>
University of California<br>
Berkeley, CA 94720-2650<br>
Voice (510) 643-7325<br>
FAX (510) 643-5688<br>
<br>
******************************************************************</div
>
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