pron. of just

[Herb Stahlke]

I believe I referred specifically to the suffix -ing.  The correct
second singular subject pronoun, btw, is "thou."  "Thee" is for
objects.

Whether reduced and unstressed overlap depends on how you treat
English stress and vowel quality.  If you opt for a multi-level stress
system, two or three levels, then probably unstressed vowels will be
reduced.  If you opt for only one level of stress, then unstressed
syllables may be reduced or have full vowels.  Ladefoged (A Course in
Phonetics) chooses the latter.

If you think that schwa and barred-i are two different phonemes in
contexts I described below, then you don't know what a phoneme is.
Phonemes are by definition not predictable.  Their allophones by
definition are.

Syllabic consonants are a fact of many languages, including English.
They may not fit into your scheme, but that's a problem for your
scheme, not a demonstration that syllabic consonants are a bad idea.
That's like saying that rain is a bad idea.

The vowels in "put" and "pull" are formed in part by raising the back
of the tongue towards the soft palate, technically called the velum.
This is not velarization.  Velarization is the combination of this
raising of the back of the tongue with a primary articulation like the
alveolar lateral /l/.  Velarization, like palatalization and
labialization, is a secondary articulation.

Using a schwa-r representation for "her" or "burr" is a convention,
not a phonetically precise representation.  I don't object to the
convention itself.  It's particularly useful when dealing with r-drop
dialects that also have intrusive /r/, as in "idear is."  It's useful
in such cases or when dealing with comparative dialectology.  It's not
useful if you're trying to describe accurately the sounds of a
particular dialect.  "Her" contains two sounds, not three.

Forehead and horrid rhyme in some dialects, like British RP.  OED
rhymes them, and MW and AHD both give rhyming pronunciations as
alternate pronunciations.

Herb

On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 11:16 PM, Tom Zurinskas <truespel at hotmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: pron. of just
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> comments below.
>
> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
> see truespel.com
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: Herb Stahlke
>> Subject: Re: pron. of just
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Tom,
>>
>> The first vowel of 'linguistic" and the third in "dirigible" are not
>> the same.
>
> I agree but it was thee who said they were the same sound.
>
>> That of "linguistic," while not the /i/ that I think you
>> suggest, is not a reduced vowel either. The third vowel of
>> "dirigible" is reduced.
>
> Reduced means unstressed I assume.
>
>> Reduced vowels in English typically become
>> schwa, but surrounding consonants can modify that, as the
>> palato-alveolar africate /dZ/ does in "just" (adv.) and "dirigible,"
>> raising the schwa to barred-i. The distinction between the two sounds
>> is real, but it is allophonic here.
>
> Nope. Two different phonemes.
>
>> Your use of "oo" before the final /l/ of "dirigible" also reflects a
>> faulty assumption on your part, that there is in fact a vowel in that
>> syllable. Final unstressed /l/ in English is typically syllabic, that
>> is, it is the vowel and final consonant of the syllable combined.
>> There is no oo or schwa or any other vowel before it.
>
> Syllabic "l" is not a good concept.  A syllable needs a vowel.  Also if you add a suffix you might need that vowel.  For instand cannibalize.  It's not pronounced cannablize.  But a "syllabic l" would wipe out the vowel that is necessary there.  Syllabic l is bad concept that is worthless.
>
>> Your sense that
>> the vowel oo occurs there probably arises from the fact that
>> syllable-final /l/ is velarized, that is, the back of the tongue is
>> raised in the same gesture that produces the vowel of "put," which you
>> write as oo. What you're doing is interpreting an allophonic feature
>> of final /l/ as a vowel, a misunderstanding of what's going on
>> phonetically.
>
> I don't think the vowel in "put" or "pull" is velarized at all.
>
>> I understand that you've trained yourself to listen closely to sounds.
>> The problem is that you've trained yourself and so have not benefited
>> from someone who really is expert in hearing, distinguishing, and
>> teaching the sounds of English and other languages. You would benefit
>> from a course in phonetics, as well as an intro to linguistics.
>
> I've seen quite a bit of it on the internet, with voice as well.
>
>> As to the words below, MW.com follows a common convention of using
>> schwa in more than one way. MW makes no distinction between the two
>> vowels of "sofa" or "abut" on the widely accepted premise that schwa
>> is the unstressed allophone of inverted v.
>
> The new thing is the ability to "hear" the words spoken in the internet dictionaries.  Therefore unstressed vowel phonemes can be determined rather than schwad.
>
>> Further, instead of using
>> syllabic consonants in "her" and "bottle" they use a vowel before the
>> consonant, namely, schwa.
>
> That's so much better than the "syllablized consonant" idea.
>
>> For a readership unfamiliarwith syllabic
>> consonants, that's a reasonable solution even if it's not phonetically
>> accurate.
>
> If it's not accurate why is it reasonable?  Not good.
>
>> As to the first pronunciation of "forehead," remember the
>> nursery rhyme
>
> Actually ~faared doesn't rhyme with ~horid
>
>> There was a little girl
>> who had a little curl
>> right in the middle of her forehead.
>>
>> When she was good
>> she was very very good
>>
>> But when she was bad
>> she was horrid.
>>
>> The rhyme works only for those, largely British, dialects that use the
>> first pronunciation, rhyming with "horrid."
>>
>> Herb
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 8:24 PM, Tom Zurinskas wrote:
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>>> Sender: Â Â Â American Dialect Society
>>> Poster: Â Â Â Tom Zurinskas
>>> Subject: Â Â Â Re: pron. of just
>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> These 5 words are from m-w.com. Â There is a schwa in each that the speaker pronounces as a different phoneme. Â That's at least 5 different sounds for one symbol. Â (because m-w.com uses special symbols, the schwa sign may not come out).
>>>
>>> her = \(h)ər, ˈhər\  I hear the ~er phoneme
>>> but = \ˈbət\    I hear the ~u phoneme
>>> local = \ˈlŠ-kəl\  I hear the ~oo phoneme
>>> flaccid  = \ˈfla-səd also ˈflak-səd\  I hear the ~i phoneme
>>> forehead =  \ˈfär-əd, ˈfȯr-; ˈfȯr-ˌhed also -ˌed\  I hear the ~e phoneme
>>>
>>> Note. Â I've never heard flaccid pronounced ~flaksid, nor forehead pronounced ~faared. Â Anyone else?
>>>
>>> Clearly schwa stands for many sounds.
>>>
>>> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
>>> see truespel.com
>>>
>>>
>>>
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