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Here is a trivial little problem for the phoneticians and
phonologists:<br>
<br>
IPA
(<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.internationalphoneticalphabet.org/ipa-sounds/ipa-chart-with-sounds/#ipachartstart">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:<br>
<ol>
<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="moz-signature">-- <br>
<p style="font-size:90%">Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann<br>
Rudolfstr. 4<br>
99092 Erfurt<br>
<span style="font-variant:small-caps">Deutschland</span></p>
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<td>Tel.:</td>
<td>+49/361/2113417</td>
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<td>E-Post:</td>
<td><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:christianw_lehmann@arcor.de">christianw_lehmann@arcor.de</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Web:</td>
<td><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.christianlehmann.eu">https://www.christianlehmann.eu</a></td>
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