schwa-raising.

[Rankin, Robert L]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> I'm not sure on what grounds Bob Rankin makes the claim that these vowels
are phonologically /I/.

It's my phonological identification of it as a native speaker of English,
albeit one of the US varieties.  I take it that native speaker reaction is
really the only factor that enters into such identification.  Personally, I
find the acoustics of such things interesting and appreciate those who go to
the trouble to take the measurements, but let's face it, the relationship
between what is "really" there phonetically and the phonology of the
situation is rather indirect with lots of factors in play.  People perceive
things all the time that aren't even there objectively, and they completely
miss or misidentify things that are clearly present objectively.

I like to use the example [dlaes] 'glass' in introductory courses.  Students
who speak languages that permit initial /dl/ clusters always get it right,
but all my English-speaking students swear up and down they heard a /g/.
But they didn't.  They just perceive it that way.

Actually, if anyone is curious, it is possible you can still get a playback
on the BBC website.  The quotation in question was on the version of
Newshour carried in the States by some NPR stations around local noon on
July 23  --  early evening in Britain.

Bob Rankin