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<p>I would recommend the following paper, which proposes that IPA
symbols should be thought of as not more than comparative
concepts:</p>
<div class="csl-bib-body"
style="line-height: 1.35; margin-left: 2em; text-indent:-2em;">
<div class="csl-entry">Ladd, D. Robert. 2011. Phonetics in
phonology. In Goldsmith, John A & Riggle, Jason & Yu,
Alan C. L (eds.), <i>The handbook of phonological theory</i>,
348–373. Chichester: Blackwell.
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781444343069.ch11">https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781444343069.ch11</a></div>
</div>
<p>I think that the symbols should be generalizable across lects,
but de facto, they are often used as notations for phonemic
contrasts, and these can be phonetically quite different across
languages. Thus, there may be only rough similarities between an /ɪ/
in one language and an /ɪ/ in another language.</p>
<p>I think that this is parallel to comparative concepts in
morphosyntax: Terms such as "passive" or "imperative" should have
the same meaning in all languages, but since language-particular
categories are defined by language-internal contrasts, categories
called "Passive" or "Imperative" will often look fairly different
across languages, even though they correspond to the same
comparative concept. (Because of this parallel, I have suggested
that there could be a sort of IPA for morphosyntax:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://dlc.hypotheses.org/1000">https://dlc.hypotheses.org/1000</a>.)</p>
<p>Best,</p>
<p>Martin</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 12.07.25 13:20, JOO Ian via Lingtyp
wrote:<br>
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Dear Chrstian,</div>
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The IPA exists to transcribe meaningful articulatory contrasts
of a given lect in a manner consistent with other lects. Each
IPA symbol is thus not generalizable across different lects. In
other words, it is not possible to say if two IPA symbols are
meaningfully different without specifying which lect they are
used in, and if they are used contrastively in a transcription
of a given lect, they are by defimition contrastive.</div>
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That is my understanding, at least.</div>
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From Otaru,</div>
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Ian</div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">- - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -<br>
朱 易安 <br>
JOO, IAN <br>
准教授 <br>
Associate Professor <br>
小樽商科大学 <br>
Otaru University of Commerce</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br>
</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">🌐 <a
href="http://ianjoo.github.io/" moz-do-not-send="true">
ianjoo.github.io</a><br>
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -</span></div>
</div>
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<div id="divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><span
style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b>보낸
사람:</b> Christian Lehmann via Lingtyp
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org"><lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org></a> 대신 Lingtyp
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org"><lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org></a><br>
<b>보낸 날짜:</b> Saturday, July 12, 2025 7:52:34 PM<br>
<b>받는 사람:</b> <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org"><lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org></a><br>
<b>제목:</b> [Lingtyp] contrast between [ɪ] and [e]</span>
<div> </div>
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<div>Here is a trivial little problem for the phoneticians and
phonologists:<br>
<br>
IPA (<a
href="https://www.internationalphoneticalphabet.org/ipa-sounds/ipa-chart-with-sounds/#ipachartstart"
class="x_moz-txt-link-freetext moz-txt-link-freetext"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.internationalphoneticalphabet.org/ipa-sounds/ipa-chart-with-sounds/#ipachartstart</a>)
says that [ɪ] and [e] contrast in two features, height and
frontness/backness.<br>
<br>
Being a speaker of a language whose phonetic transcription has
involved both of the above symbols for generations of
phoneticians, and the symbols represent different phonemes, I
have always taken this for granted. However, this pair of phones
does not constitute clean minimal pairs in German because [e] is
long, [ɪ] is short.<br>
<br>
Describing now the Cabecar phonetics and phonology, there is a
front mid-high (IPA says 'near-close' or 'close-mid') vowel
phoneme which contrasts with both /i/ and /ɛ/, and there is no
length. Chibchanist tradition transcribes it by [ɪ]. (There is
an analogous configuration for /u/, /ʊ/ and /ɔ/.) I have two
innocent questions here:</div>
<ol start="1">
<li>Do [ɪ] and [e] actually sound differently? If I click them
on the IPA webpage indicated, they sound identical to my ears.
Same if I stretch the [ɪ] in my own pronunciation of
<i>bitte</i>.<br>
</li>
<li>Even supposing that these are two different phones, should
the (Cabecar) phoneme covering them not be taken to be /e/,
rather than /ɪ/ (and likewise for /o/ rather than /ʊ/)?</li>
</ol>
My (less innocent) suspicion is (but please correct me) that
transcribing German words like
<i>bitte</i> with [ɪ] instead of the [e] of <i>bete</i> is due to
a phonological or even orthographic bias.<br>
<br>
Curiously, if you ask Google "Is there a phonological contrast
between [ɪ] and [e]?", its KI cheats you, adducing English
examples spelled with <e> which represents an [ɛ].<br>
<div class="x_moz-signature">--</div>
<p class="x_moz-signature">Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann<br>
Rudolfstr. 4<br>
99092 Erfurt<br>
Deutschland</p>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Martin Haspelmath
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6
D-04103 Leipzig
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/">https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/</a></pre>
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