Back Vowel Phonemes

[Dennis R. Preston]

Mary Beth thinks you are two phnemes shy; I think you ar only one shy.
I bet dollars to donuts that her /o/ in "on" is really a raised ). On the
other hand, the caret (not schwa) in the second syllable of "upon" strikes
me as the real McCoy in some southern varieties.

dInIs


>
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>My reply is a little behind because I get the list in digest form.
>
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>Terry Irons wrote:
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>>dog, lost, horror, on, upon, water, wash
>
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>>My query is, what vowel would you consider to be the underlying phoneme
>in each case, ) or a?>
>
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>In my opinion you aren't considering enough phonemes.  My opinion is based
>on growing up in Mississippi.
>
>
>dog = ) >
>lost = ) >
>horror = a >
>on = o >
>upon = schwa in both syllables
>water = a,   but my 95 year old grandmother uses )
>wash = a >
>
>
>Mary Beth Breland
>Assistant Professor of English
>English Department Chair
>Hannibal-LaGrange College
>2800 Palmyra Road
>Hannibal, MO 63401
>mbreland at hlg.edu
>
>


Dennis R. Preston
Department of Linguistics and Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
preston at pilot.msu.edu
Office: (517)353-0740
Fax: (517)432-2736