Re: [ADS-L] pron. o f just

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

Herb,
I am sure that TZ cannot quite get away from being influenced bny the 
conventional spelling of vowels. However, it seems to me that part of the problem is 
that the arrogant Mr. Z refuses to acknowledge (1) the possibility that his 
"ear" may be wrong and (2) that the pronunciations of normally variable 
syllables do not HAVE TO BE (in the prescriptive sense) whatever chance variation may 
occur (or he thinks he hears) in the sound file in the pronunciation on the 
M-W web site. So if the voice says (or seems to TZ to say) [sekrIteri] (where by 
  [l] I intend to indicate a barred-cap-i and by the [i] to indicate a 
barred-noncap-i) then that is the ONLY POSSIBLE "CORRECT" PRONUNCIATION of the vowel 
in the second syllable. But if Z hears a schwa instead of [I], then he 
believes that "secretary" MUST be pronounced with a schwa and [I] is not just 
variable, it is WRONG. So he gets confused when he sees M-W (which is apparently 
written by God) representing these phonetic variations with a schwa, and that is 
why he says that schwa is a symbol that represents several sounds. It does not 
matter what the IPA says, what matters for him is the behavior of the sacred 
text, the M-W (and of course the so fine an ear with which he is gifted, to 
paraphrase Yeats).

Z's "system" cannot abide free variation, let alone dialect variation. 


In a message dated 2/28/09 6:46:42 PM, hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM writes:


> I checked the IPA web site.  The IPA shows schwa in its vowel chart
> specifically as an unrounded mid central vowel
> (http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/vowels.html).  The IPA transcription of
> "International Phonetic Association" represents the RP pronunciation
> in which all five schwas are that unrounded mid central vowel.  They
> do not represent other vowel sounds.  They may correspond to different
> spellings, but that's irrelevant.  And note that "association" is
> transcribed with a final syllabic /n/.
> 
> Herb
> 




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