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FB
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Dec 18, 2004 8:19 am
Post subject: About the sound [&] |
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I've been watching some old English films and listening to some recordings
of John Gielgud reading short stories. I noticed that some of the words
which are nowadays pronounced with the sound [&] ([ae]) were pronounced
with the sound [E@] ("back", "lack", "that" and "had" come to mind), or
perhaps [e@] or [E]. The SOED only reports such a pronunciation for
"that", as far as I've checked, transcribing it [DEt] and reckoning it as
"now only repr. dial. or affected pronunc.". My question is: what kind of
words were pronounced with that sound in lieu of [&]? Not all of them, for
it would mean that [&] was never used, and this doesn't seem to me the
case. And what would be a correct transcription in IPA of that sound?
Partially on another note, some of the words which are pronounced with a
[&] in BritEng, such as "man", "hand", "plan" and "stand", have a different
sound in AmEng. What kind of words are pronounced like that? words where
the "a" is followed by "n" and which would have a [&] sound in BritEng? And
how can that sound be transcribed in IPA. Is it, and this is why I wrote
this was only partially on another note, the same sound I've heard in old
films and recordings, though, it appears to me, in a different set of
words?
Bye, FB
--
"Something to take to the country." (holding out a bunch of flowers)
"Flowers come _from_ the country, Charles."
(Cold Comfort Farm, the film) |
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FB
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Dec 18, 2004 8:19 am
Post subject: Re: About the sound [&] |
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On Sat, 18 Dec 2004 02:07:45 GMT, FB wrote:
| Quote: | I've been watching some old English films and listening to some recordings
of John Gielgud reading short stories. I noticed that some of the words
which are nowadays pronounced with the sound [&] ([ae]) were pronounced
with the sound [E@] ("back", "lack", "that" and "had" come to mind), or
perhaps [e@] or [E]. The SOED only reports such a pronunciation for
"that", as far as I've checked, transcribing it [DEt]
[...] |
which doesn't seem a good transcription to me, because I also heard the
word "bad" pronounced with that sound, and it wasn't a homophone of "bed",
being longer and more like [E@] or [e@], as I've written.
Bye, FB
--
"Something to take to the country." (holding out a bunch of flowers)
"Flowers come _from_ the country, Charles."
(Cold Comfort Farm, the film) |
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Areff
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2004 4:18 am
Post subject: Re: About the sound [&] |
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|
FB wrote:
| Quote: | I've been watching some old English films and listening to some recordings
of John Gielgud reading short stories. I noticed that some of the words
which are nowadays pronounced with the sound [&] ([ae]) were pronounced
with the sound [E@] ("back", "lack", "that" and "had" come to mind), or
perhaps [e@] or [E]. The SOED only reports such a pronunciation for
"that", as far as I've checked, transcribing it [DEt] and reckoning it as
"now only repr. dial. or affected pronunc.". My question is: what kind of
words were pronounced with that sound in lieu of [&]? Not all of them, for
it would mean that [&] was never used, and this doesn't seem to me the
case. And what would be a correct transcription in IPA of that sound?
|
Dunno what vowels we're dealing with here exactly, but we've discussed
this matter before, including recently. Sith Efrica seems to preserve
this old-fashioned (= TCE "old fashion") Britoid cat vowel. As I think
Bob C. recently noted, the NSOED represents the cat vowel with the /a/
symbol in recognition of the downward shift of this vowel in Modern RP
(aka High Church Estuary).
| Quote: | Partially on another note, some of the words which are pronounced with a
[&] in BritEng, such as "man", "hand", "plan" and "stand", have a different
sound in AmEng. What kind of words are pronounced like that?
|
First of all, let me ask you, what's going on? You usually seem outraged
about the very existence of American English. Are you feeling okay?
Second, I don't quite know what you're talking about here. Phonemically
most of these words match cross-pondially -- let's say that they form a
"cat class" and let's say that we can use /&/ to represent the phoneme for
both BrE and AmE. But particular accents of AmE show wildly different
realizations of this vowel. At one extreme you have Inland North
Population Centers Dialects which have notoriously shifted the cat vowel
all the way, in some cases, to [I@] or [i@], so that "cat" would be
"keeeeeat". The classic AUE example of this pronunciation is ErkE.
I think the other extreme is represented by New York City English (The
Dialect So Nice They Named It NYCE[TM]). Here, strangely, though commonly
with a number of other Mid-Atlantic Coastal accents, there is a phonemic
split between "be able can" short a words and "tin can" short a words.
The former category gives you that other extreme -- we New York speakers
approach [a] in our vowel in "cat". For evidence of this, check out my
celebrated recording of "Can a cat man a catamaran?" somewhere on some
website. See also "Mary dear, make me merry: say you'll marry me".[1]
I think there are also some weird idiolects or social dialects in the US
where speakers use a fairly low "short a". I remember when I was a
teenager, though this has to do with New York speakers, many teenage girls
seemed to use an artificially low "short a" for the "tin can" class (or I
wonder whether they were sort of eliminating the distinction by moving the
tin can words to the be able area). Come to think of it, in my particular
subdialect, Postwar New York Prestige Standard of the general variety, a
key feature is that the distance between tin can and be able can is
relatively narrow (in the direction of the normative NYCE be able can
vowel) compared to many other New York subdialects. Anyway, I think I've
heard the female artificially-low short a from non-New York speakers too.
Oh, but anyway one difference between much BrE and most AmE is that only a
few dialects of AmE have that class of historical cat-vowel words that now
get the father vowel (e.g. "can't").
[1]Trademark and copyright interests in these sentences belong to Robert
Elwood Cunningham, D.O.E.U. All rights reserved.
--
Steny '08! |
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FB
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2004 8:15 am
Post subject: Re: About the sound [&] |
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On 18 Dec 2004 21:18:53 GMT, Areff wrote:
| Quote: | FB wrote:
I've been watching some old English films and listening to some recordings
of John Gielgud reading short stories. I noticed that some of the words
which are nowadays pronounced with the sound [&] ([ae]) were pronounced
with the sound [E@] ("back", "lack", "that" and "had" come to mind), or
perhaps [e@] or [E].
[...]
Dunno what vowels we're dealing with here exactly
|
I've uploaded four small mp3s:
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/fb83/hp1.mp3 (54.3 Kb, "beck")
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/fb83/hp2.mp3 (76.8 Kb, "thet")
He says [DEt], but ['k&nA.t] [1]. That's why I wish to know where they used
[E] and where [&]. I did use it, though I've quite dropped it, because I
hed, er, had a preference for old movies. Besides, it's easier for an
Italian to say [kEt] instead of [c&t].
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/fb83/khac1.mp3 (596.8 Kb, "benk", "thet" etc.)
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/fb83/khac2.mp3 (94.3 Kb, just a shorter version
of khac1.mp3)
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/fb83/khac3.mp3 (125.8 Kb, "atteck")
| Quote: | but we've discussed this matter before, including recently.
|
Have you? I found nothing relevant with google groups. Actually, I didn't
quite know what words to narrow down my research with.
[...]
| Quote: | Partially on another note, some of the words which are pronounced with a
[&] in BritEng, such as "man", "hand", "plan" and "stand", have a different
sound in AmEng. What kind of words are pronounced like that?
First of all, let me ask you, what's going on? You usually seem outraged
about the very existence of American English. Are you feeling okay?
|
O.K. Here's my accents chart:
1) Well-spoken British English;
2) American English, particularly Texan accent, non-rhotic New England
accent and maybe New York accent (yours);
3) Badly-spoken British English.
| Quote: | Second, I don't quite know what you're talking about here. Phonemically
most of these words match cross-pondially -- let's say that they form a
"cat class" and let's say that we can use /&/ to represent the phoneme for
both BrE and AmE. But particular accents of AmE show wildly different
realizations of this vowel.
|
I'd always thought that in AmEng "man" sounds like [mE:n], [me:n] or
thereabout.
[...]
| Quote: | For evidence of this, check out my
celebrated recording of "Can a cat man a catamaran?" somewhere on some
website. See also "Mary dear, make me merry: say you'll marry me".[1]
|
I found Bob Cunningham and Richard Fontana's. At least in Bob's audio file
the vowel in "man" is the one I meant.
[...]
[1] I hope [A.] is the right symbol; at all events, the vowel in "gone" and
"got" in RP.
Bye, FB
--
Emily: "I'm going to Europe and I'm going to have a marvellous time. I'm
going to get up at ten and have two glasses of wine at lunch every single
day."
Richard: "Only prostitutes have two glasses of wine at lunch!"
(Gilmore Girls, 501) |
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Jonathan Jordan
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2004 7:20 pm
Post subject: Re: About the sound [&] |
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|
"FB" <fam.balducciNOSPAM@tin.it> wrote in message
news:17pv0tzna64tt$.d3aoi0qfg2de.dlg@40tude.net...
| Quote: | On 18 Dec 2004 21:18:53 GMT, Areff wrote:
FB wrote:
I've been watching some old English films and listening to some
recordings
of John Gielgud reading short stories. I noticed that some of the words
which are nowadays pronounced with the sound [&] ([ae]) were pronounced
with the sound [E@] ("back", "lack", "that" and "had" come to mind), or
perhaps [e@] or [E].
[...]
Dunno what vowels we're dealing with here exactly
I've uploaded four small mp3s:
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/fb83/hp1.mp3 (54.3 Kb, "beck")
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/fb83/hp2.mp3 (76.8 Kb, "thet")
He says [DEt], but ['k&nA.t] [1]. That's why I wish to know where they
used
[E] and where [&].
|
I don't think there was a phonemic split as such, and I've never seen one
described for this sort of accent. Of course the vowel may be higher before
some consonants than others, and there is also usually a certain amount of
random variation in vowel sounds, which may explain the differences you're
hearing. To me all these vowels are noticeably fronter and higher than the
[a]-type vowels I use for short A, and this is a very distinctive feature of
that type of accent.
As for the transcription, I think [E] is probably right, though it's subtly
different from my "bet" vowel (which I think is fairly close to a canonical
[E]). Attempting to imitate it suggests that it may be a bit "tenser", but
don't quote me on that.
| Quote: | I did use it, though I've quite dropped it, because I
hed, er, had a preference for old movies. Besides, it's easier for an
Italian to say [kEt] instead of [c&t].
|
Presumably [kat] is easy enough, though?
<snip>
| Quote: | but we've discussed this matter before, including recently.
Have you? I found nothing relevant with google groups. Actually, I didn't
quite know what words to narrow down my research with.
|
There was one very recently about "cheps" for "chaps".
<snip>
| Quote: | [1] I hope [A.] is the right symbol; at all events, the vowel in "gone"
and
"got" in RP.
|
[A.] is right for "got", but possibly not for "gone" in the sort of RP
you're talking about.
Jonathan |
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Jonathan Jordan
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2004 7:24 pm
Post subject: Re: About the sound [&] |
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|
"Areff" <me@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:32jl5tF3oafglU1@individual.net...
| Quote: | FB wrote:
I've been watching some old English films and listening to some
recordings
of John Gielgud reading short stories. I noticed that some of the words
which are nowadays pronounced with the sound [&] ([ae]) were pronounced
with the sound [E@] ("back", "lack", "that" and "had" come to mind), or
perhaps [e@] or [E]. The SOED only reports such a pronunciation for
"that", as far as I've checked, transcribing it [DEt] and reckoning it
as
"now only repr. dial. or affected pronunc.". My question is: what kind
of
words were pronounced with that sound in lieu of [&]? Not all of them,
for
it would mean that [&] was never used, and this doesn't seem to me the
case. And what would be a correct transcription in IPA of that sound?
Dunno what vowels we're dealing with here exactly, but we've discussed
this matter before, including recently. Sith Efrica seems to preserve
this old-fashioned (= TCE "old fashion") Britoid cat vowel. As I think
Bob C. recently noted, the NSOED represents the cat vowel with the /a/
symbol in recognition of the downward shift of this vowel in Modern RP
(aka High Church Estuary).
Partially on another note, some of the words which are pronounced with a
[&] in BritEng, such as "man", "hand", "plan" and "stand", have a
different
sound in AmEng. What kind of words are pronounced like that?
First of all, let me ask you, what's going on? You usually seem outraged
about the very existence of American English. Are you feeling okay?
Second, I don't quite know what you're talking about here. Phonemically
most of these words match cross-pondially -- let's say that they form a
"cat class" and let's say that we can use /&/ to represent the phoneme for
both BrE and AmE.
|
Wells's [1] TRAP class, and also his BATH class for those of us who don't
use the "father" vowel in "bath" etc.
| Quote: | But particular accents of AmE show wildly different
realizations of this vowel. At one extreme you have Inland North
Population Centers Dialects which have notoriously shifted the cat vowel
all the way, in some cases, to [I@] or [i@], so that "cat" would be
"keeeeeat". The classic AUE example of this pronunciation is ErkE.
I think the other extreme is represented by New York City English (The
Dialect So Nice They Named It NYCE[TM]). Here, strangely, though commonly
with a number of other Mid-Atlantic Coastal accents, there is a phonemic
split between "be able can" short a words and "tin can" short a words.
The former category gives you that other extreme -- we New York speakers
approach [a] in our vowel in "cat". For evidence of this, check out my
celebrated recording of "Can a cat man a catamaran?" somewhere on some
website. See also "Mary dear, make me merry: say you'll marry me".[1]
|
I think FB is probably talking about the tendency to use a raised vowel for
/&/ in certain words, especially before nasal consonants, in many/most
American accents. This can be allophonic, or it can be associated with the
short A split.
| Quote: | I think there are also some weird idiolects or social dialects in the US
where speakers use a fairly low "short a". I remember when I was a
teenager, though this has to do with New York speakers, many teenage girls
seemed to use an artificially low "short a" for the "tin can" class (or I
wonder whether they were sort of eliminating the distinction by moving the
tin can words to the be able area). Come to think of it, in my particular
subdialect, Postwar New York Prestige Standard of the general variety, a
key feature is that the distance between tin can and be able can is
relatively narrow (in the direction of the normative NYCE be able can
vowel) compared to many other New York subdialects. Anyway, I think I've
heard the female artificially-low short a from non-New York speakers too.
|
Supposedly some CIC [1] and FRWB [2] North American accents show a shift of
/&/ into the [a] position left vacant by the "cot"/"father" vowel having
merged with the back "caught" vowel. Labov calls this (and some related
developments) the "Canadian Shift".
[1] J. C. Wells, _Accents of English_
[2] "cot" is "caught"
[3] "father" rhymes with "bother"
Jonathan |
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Bob Cunningham
Guest
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FB
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2004 9:07 pm
Post subject: Re: About the sound [&] |
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On Sun, 19 Dec 2004 12:20:12 -0000, Jonathan Jordan wrote:
| Quote: | "FB" <fam.balducciNOSPAM@tin.it> wrote in message
news:17pv0tzna64tt$.d3aoi0qfg2de.dlg@40tude.net...
[...]
I did use it, though I've quite dropped it, because I
hed, er, had a preference for old movies. Besides, it's easier for an
Italian to say [kEt] instead of [c&t].
Presumably [kat] is easy enough, though?
|
Yes. If I said [kat], I'd sound like you (I believe you're from Sheffield,
aren't you?). (smiling face)
[...]
| Quote: | [A.] is right for "got", but possibly not for "gone" in the sort of RP
you're talking about.
|
Do you mean it would be [gVn]? John Gielgud, I think, wouldn't have said
"gone" that way, but very posh speakers did.
Bye, FB
--
Se dico "siedi!" manca l'oggetto.
Siedo chi? Lei o me?
(da it.cultura.linguistica.italiano) |
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FB
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2004 9:26 pm
Post subject: Re: About the sound [&] |
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|
On Sun, 19 Dec 2004 12:20:12 -0000, Jonathan Jordan wrote:
| Quote: | "FB" <fam.balducciNOSPAM@tin.it> wrote in message
news:17pv0tzna64tt$.d3aoi0qfg2de.dlg@40tude.net...
[...]
He says [DEt], but ['k&nA.t] [1]. That's why I wish to know where they
used
[E] and where [&].
I don't think there was a phonemic split as such, and I've never seen one
described for this sort of accent. Of course the vowel may be higher before
some consonants than others, and there is also usually a certain amount of
random variation in vowel sounds, which may explain the differences you're
hearing. To me all these vowels are noticeably fronter and higher than the
[a]-type vowels I use for short A, and this is a very distinctive feature of
that type of accent.
|
Was it always, more or less, [E], then?
| Quote: | As for the transcription, I think [E] is probably right, though it's subtly
different from my "bet" vowel (which I think is fairly close to a canonical
[E]).
|
It's longer, isn't it? That's why I said that "bed" and "bad" were not
homophones: "bad" was longer. Also, the "e" in "bed" was very close, if you
follow me.
| Quote: | Attempting to imitate it suggests that it may be a bit "tenser", but
don't quote me on that.
|
Is that vowel ("thet") ever used nowadays? In some dialects, I suppose, but
in RP?
[...]
Bye, FB
--
Emily: "I'm going to Europe and I'm going to have a marvellous time. I'm
going to get up at ten and have two glasses of wine at lunch every single
day."
Richard: "Only prostitutes have two glasses of wine at lunch!"
(Gilmore Girls, 501) |
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FB
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2004 10:16 pm
Post subject: Re: About the sound [&] |
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On Sun, 19 Dec 2004 14:26:08 GMT, FB wrote:
[...]
| Quote: | Is that vowel ("thet") ever used nowadays? In some dialects, I suppose, but
in RP?
|
In place of [&], I mean.
Bye, FB
--
"May I come with you to the station?"
"Please, do. I like to go off in style."
(Cold Comfort Farm, the film) |
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Areff
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2004 1:49 am
Post subject: Re: About the sound [&] |
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|
FB wrote:
| Quote: | On Sun, 19 Dec 2004 14:26:08 GMT, FB wrote:
[...]
Is that vowel ("thet") ever used nowadays? In some dialects, I suppose, but
in RP?
In place of [&], I mean.
|
FB, I sense very strongly that you have an "I want to sound 'posh'"
agenda. But do you realize what happened to all the posh speakers in
Britain? They're gone. One of them ended up in British Columbia. I'm
sure you can find a few others in various corners of the former Empah.
'Posh' pronunciation is now a social liability in Britain. The NSOED
wants you to use [a] in "cat" to avoid causing offense to other British
speakers. I'm not making this up.
You're better off going with the anti-aristocratic Estuary English --
which, after all, seems to be the accent that continental Europeans most
often pick up these days.
--
Steny '08! |
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FB
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2004 3:26 am
Post subject: Re: About the sound [&] |
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On 19 Dec 2004 18:49:33 GMT, Areff wrote:
[...]
| Quote: | FB, I sense very strongly that you have an "I want to sound 'posh'"
agenda.
|
My accent is (imperfect, first of all) not particularly modern, but I don't
much like the idea of appearing posh: I wouldn't say [geu] for "go" or
[ta:] for "tower", and yet [by:t] for "boot", or [sA.id] for "side" grate
upon my ear. The funny thing is that my Italian accent is terrible.
[...]
| Quote: | You're better off going with the anti-aristocratic Estuary English --
which, after all, seems to be the accent that continental Europeans most
often pick up these days.
|
I prefer American to Estuary English by far. (Are you fainting? Someone
bring a smelling bottle!)
Bye, FB
--
In any case, if you say 'I gotta go' at an important job interview you're
contributing to being allowed just that privilege.
(Tony the ice man on it.cultura.linguistica.inglese) |
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Jonathan Jordan
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2004 12:23 am
Post subject: Re: About the sound [&] |
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|
"FB" <fam.balducciNOSPAM@tin.it> wrote in message
news:orjhhxe722h$.1tjne9aj2u4ng.dlg@40tude.net...
| Quote: | On Sun, 19 Dec 2004 12:20:12 -0000, Jonathan Jordan wrote:
|
<snip>
| Quote: | [A.] is right for "got", but possibly not for "gone" in the sort of
RP
you're talking about.
Do you mean it would be [gVn]? John Gielgud, I think, wouldn't have
said
"gone" that way, but very posh speakers did.
|
No, I was thinking of [gO:n], with the vowel of "caught", as in [gO:n
O:f] for "gone off" - a possibly even more old-fashioned feature (in
England) than the raised /&/.
Jonathan |
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Areff
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2004 1:28 am
Post subject: Re: About the sound [&] |
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|
Jonathan Jordan wrote:
| Quote: | No, I was thinking of [gO:n], with the vowel of "caught", as in [gO:n
O:f] for "gone off" - a possibly even more old-fashioned feature (in
England) than the raised /&/.
|
I'm almost dead sure that /gOn/ is used by many CINC Americans. In my
CINC metadialect, however, New York City English (The Dialect So Nice They
Named It NYCE), "gone" has the "cot" vowel. Indeed, I can't think of any
historical short-o words where the following consonant is /n/ that are in
the "dog" class in NYCE. /N/, sure: long, song, strong, wrong. But not
/n/.
In the Waterbury region of western Connecticut, which is dialectally akin
to the vowel-shifted accents of the Upper Midwest, "gone" gets the
"caught" vowel. Maybe it does in Chicago, Michigan, northern Ohio, coney
country of New York State, etc. too. Ask Erk.
--
Steny '08! |
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FB
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2004 1:30 am
Post subject: Re: About the sound [&] |
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|
On Mon, 20 Dec 2004 17:23:05 -0000, Jonathan Jordan wrote:
[...]
| Quote: | No, I was thinking of [gO:n]
|
Oh, yes, I've heard of it. You can find both the raised [&] and the [O:]
for [A.] thing in Agatha Christie's accent:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/audiointerviews/profilepages/christiea1.shtml
And in John Betjeman's:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/audiointerviews/profilepages/betjemanj1.shtml
who, in case you're interested, studied at Morlbrah.
[...]
Bye, FB
--
Just as I thought. Another test that could have cost us our lives, saved
only by the fact that I am enormously well-bred.
(Murder by Death) |
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