[Lingtyp] contrast between [ɪ] and [e]

[JOO Ian]

Dear Chrstian,

The IPA exists to transcribe meaningful articulatory contrasts of a given lect in a manner consistent with other lects. Each IPA symbol is thus not generalizable across different lects. In other words, it is not possible to say if two IPA symbols are meaningfully different without specifying which lect they are used in, and if they are used contrastively in a transcription of a given lect, they are by defimition contrastive.

That is my understanding, at least.

From Otaru,
Ian

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朱　易安
JOO, IAN
准教授
Associate Professor
小樽商科大学
Otaru University of Commerce

🌐 ianjoo.github.io<http://ianjoo.github.io/>
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보낸 사람: Christian Lehmann via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> 대신 Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org>
보낸 날짜: Saturday, July 12, 2025 7:52:34 PM
받는 사람: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
제목: [Lingtyp] contrast between [ɪ] and [e]

Here is a trivial little problem for the phoneticians and phonologists:

IPA (https://www.internationalphoneticalphabet.org/ipa-sounds/ipa-chart-with-sounds/#ipachartstart) says that [ɪ] and [e] contrast in two features, height and frontness/backness.

Being a speaker of a language whose phonetic transcription has involved both of the above symbols for generations of phoneticians, and the symbols represent different phonemes, I have always taken this for granted. However, this pair of phones does not constitute clean minimal pairs in German because [e] is long, [ɪ] is short.

Describing now the Cabecar phonetics and phonology, there is a front mid-high (IPA says 'near-close' or 'close-mid') vowel phoneme which contrasts with both /i/ and /ɛ/, and there is no length. Chibchanist tradition transcribes it by [ɪ]. (There is an analogous configuration for /u/, /ʊ/ and /ɔ/.) I have two innocent questions here:

  1.  Do [ɪ] and [e] actually sound differently? If I click them on the IPA webpage indicated, they sound identical to my ears. Same if I stretch the [ɪ] in my own pronunciation of bitte.
  2.  Even supposing that these are two different phones, should the (Cabecar) phoneme covering them not be taken to be /e/, rather than /ɪ/ (and likewise for /o/ rather than /ʊ/)?

My (less innocent) suspicion is (but please correct me) that transcribing German words like bitte with [ɪ] instead of the [e] of bete is due to a phonological or even orthographic bias.

Curiously, if you ask Google "Is there a phonological contrast between [ɪ] and [e]?", its KI cheats you, adducing English examples spelled with <e> which represents an [ɛ].
--

Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann
Rudolfstr. 4
99092 Erfurt
Deutschland

Tel.:
+49/361/2113417
E-Post:
christianw_lehmann at arcor.de<mailto:christianw_lehmann at arcor.de>
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