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

[Martin Haspelmath]

I would recommend the following paper, which proposes that IPA symbols 
should be thought of as not more than comparative concepts:

Ladd, D. Robert. 2011. Phonetics in phonology. In Goldsmith, John A & 
Riggle, Jason & Yu, Alan C. L (eds.), /The handbook of phonological 
theory/, 348–373. Chichester: Blackwell. 
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781444343069.ch11

I think that the symbols should be generalizable across lects, but de 
facto, they are often used as notations for phonemic contrasts, and 
these can be phonetically quite different across languages. Thus, there 
may be only rough similarities between an /ɪ/ in one language and an /ɪ/ 
in another language.

I think that this is parallel to comparative concepts in morphosyntax: 
Terms such as "passive" or "imperative" should have the same meaning in 
all languages, but since language-particular categories are defined by 
language-internal contrasts, categories called "Passive" or "Imperative" 
will often look fairly different across languages, even though they 
correspond to the same comparative concept. (Because of this parallel, I 
have suggested that there could be a sort of IPA for morphosyntax: 
https://dlc.hypotheses.org/1000.)

Best,

Martin

On 12.07.25 13:20, JOO Ian via Lingtyp wrote:
> 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
>
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> 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/>
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *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 
> <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>
> Web:
> 	
> https://www.christianlehmann.eu <https://www.christianlehmann.eu>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp

-- 
Martin Haspelmath
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6
D-04103 Leipzig
https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20250712/53663416/attachment.htm>