pron. of just, etc.

[ronbutters at AOL.COM]

Trying to explain phonology to TZ is like preaching to an anvil or contradicting a parrot. I say give it up & maybe he'll go away. Matt's point that some naïve lurker might be taken in by TD's erroneous postings made sense to me at the time, but on reflection I doubt that a novice is going to give any credence to a guy who spells "just" as "joost" (or whatever) and is on a mission to save the world by a spelling system that would require everyone to do likewise. The compassionate thing to do is just ignore this poor befuddled soul--and save ourselves a lot of useless effort.
------Original Message------
From: M Covarrubias
Sender: ADS-L
To: ADS-L
ReplyTo: ADS-L
Subject: Re: [ADS-L] pron. of just
Sent: Mar 1, 2009 9:17 AM

On Mar 1, 2009, at 8:29 AM, Tom Zurinskas wrote:

>
> Nonsense.  What's your point?  Take a look at the chart yourself and
> tell us what you see.  Or play it at http://www.phonetics.ucla.edu/course/chapter1/vowels.html
> Is schwa correct for the vowels in "hut, rug, rust" as spoken in m-
> w.com?
>>
>>

you might want to consider the difference between a symbol and the
phoneme it represents.

you said that ipa cannot show that the schwa is more than one sound.
forget that the 'e' rotated 180 degrees is often *called* a schwa. the
label isn't relevant to the ability of the ipa to represent various
vowels. but if we are using "schwa" to indicate a reduced and
unstressed vowel there are several symbols in the ipa that can capture
all the vowels -- the actual sounds -- that you are choosing to call
schwa.

a broad ipa transcription for the words you list (hut rug rust) would
in most english dialects be the open mid back unrounded, or strut
vowel, which looks like an upside down 'v'. the mid central vowel
(which symbol is often called the schwa) is one specific range of
vowel -- yes. but all the variations, the actual sounds that you
suggest we call "schwa" can more accurately and descriptively be
described using the corresponding ipa representations or symbols.

study with someone who understands how the international phonetic
alphabet is organized and labeled. what you call the various types of
schwa are given distinct labels in the ipa depending on their
articulation.

michael

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