what is a schwa? (was "just")

Sun Mar 1 19:18:32 UTC 2009

At 2:03 PM -0500 3/1/09, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
>I don't disagree with what Pullum & Laduslaw

I know it's picky, but if we're gonna keep referring to him, we might
as well call him Ladusaw.

LH

>  are saying. In fact, that is the
>same message I was trying to convey about English /i/, which sometimes is
>represented by <i> and sometimes by <iy>. What they are saying is that schwa
>is/has been used in different ways by different phoneticians, and
>usually related
>to how broad or narrow is their PHONEMIC transcription. On the other hand, the
>IPA PHONETIC value us as a mid-central unrounded vowel.
>
>Or maybe I don't understand what you are saying. Or maybe you don't
>understand what I am saying. So maybe we are saying the same thing.
>
>In a message dated 3/1/09 11:52:02 AM, strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM writes:
>
>
>>  On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 11:25 PM,  <RonButters at aol.com> wrote:
>>  > Randy appears be confusing phonemics and phonetics, as do many
>>  nonlinguists.
>>  > Schwa "stands for a range of sounds" only in the sense that in some
>>  phonemic
>>  > representations of English, it is used to symbolize all unstressed
>>  vowels--in
>>  > the same way that, say, /i/ "stands for a range of sounds" in SOME
>>  > phonemicizations of English ranging from realizations with a very strong
>>  off
>>  > glide to those with a pure long vowel. In other phonemicizations of
>>  English,
>>  > [i] stands for the sound in "bit" and "beat" would be phonemicized as
>>  /biyt/.
>>  >
>>  > It appears to me that Matt is talking about the standard Ineternational
>>  > Phonetic Alphabet, in which schwa is indeed assigned a unique place in the
>>  > oral scheme of things: a mid-central unrounded vowel."
>>
>>  Ron, both Matt and I were talking about the International Phonetic
>>  Alphabet; I quoted a phonetics reference book.  I'm not confusing
>>  phonemics and phonetics.
>>
>>  One could, of course, assign a specific phonetic value to schwa, but
>>  I'm trying to point out that doing so is not what appears to be the
>>  norm.  Here's the rest of the comments on the schwa entry from Pullum
>  > & Laduslaw (p48-9):
>>
>>  =====
>>
>>  Used for a range of distinguishable non-peripheral vowels for which
>>  other symbols could also be used; thus [schwa] may represent in broad
>>  transcriptions a retracted and only slightly rounded [o-e ligature] in
>>  French, [turned a] in word-final position in British English,
>>  [reversed epsilon] in stressed positions in British English, [barred
>>  i] in many American dialects, and so on.
>>
>>  There is a wide range of variation in the articulatory descriptions
>>  given to Schwa by American phoneticians.  Bloch and Trager (1942, 22)
>>  define it as mean-mid central.  Pike (1945, 5) gives it as upper-mid
>>  central.  Smalley (1963, 363) shows it as lower-mid central. Gleason
>>  (1955, 8) does not distinguish [schwa] from [turned v] and describes
>>  [schwa] as mid-central or back. On the distinction between [schwa] and
>>  [turned v], see the unintendedly confusing note by Cartier and Todaro
>>  (1983, 17).
>>
>>  Following in this tradition, Chomsky and Halle (1968, 176) do not
>>  include [schwa] in their chart showing the feature composition of
>>  English segments, though they use the symbol [schwa] throughout.  This
>>  is because they write [schwa] for a totally unstressed vowel and
>>  deliberately take no position on the question of its precise phonetic
>>  realization (59, note 1; 245, note 7). Hence they espouse no phonetic
>>  description corresponding to [schwa], though they note (59, note 1)
>>  that for many speakers it may be [barred i].  Their feature system
>>  apparently does not allow for the representation of a distinction
>>  between IPA [barred i], [schwa], and [turned v].
>>
>>  =====
>>
>>  That paints a pretty clear picture of schwa being used as something
>>  that is quite variable in phonetic transcriptions.  Which isn't to say
>>  that one isn't free to assign specific formant values to it, if one
>>  wanted to.
>>
>>  Randy
>>
>>  > In a message dated 2/28/09 10:04:20 AM, strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM writes:
>  > >
>>  >> On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 5:37 AM, Matthew Gordon <gordonmj at missouri.edu>
>>  =20
>>  >> wrote:
>>  >> > I suppose that like Humpty Dumpty you're free to have words mean just
>>  wh=
>>  > at
>>  >> > you choose them to mean, but in phonetics schwa is the name of a=20
>>  >> particular
>>  >> > symbol that describes one particular sound and this is how M-W use it
>>  in
>>  >> > their notation.
>>  >>=20
>>  >> I've never read anything that said schwa stood for one particular
>>  >> sound.=A0 Everything I've seen about it either describes it as a range
>>  >> of sounds; unless you count its designation as a mid-central unrounded
>>  >> vowel.=A0 Pullum & Laduslaw's Phonetic Symbol Guide (p48) says it is
>>  >> "used for a range of distinguishable non-peripheral vowels for which
>>  >> other symbols could also be used".
>>  >>=20
>>  >> --
>>  >> Randy Alexander
>>  >> Jilin City, China
>>  >> My Manchu studies blog:
>>  >> http://www.bjshengr.com/manchu
>>  >>=20
>>  >> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>  >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>  >>=20
>>  >>=20
>>  >
>>  >
>>  >
>>  >
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>>  >
>>
>>
>>
>>  --
>>  Randy Alexander
>>  Jilin City, China
>>  My Manchu studies blog:
>>  http://www.bjshengr.com/manchu
>>
>>  ------------------------------------------------------------
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>>
>>
>
>
>
>
>**************
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