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Skitt
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2004 6:06 am
Post subject: Re: vowel lengths in English |
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don groves rakstija:
| Quote: | The mouth has three movable parts that contribute to speech,
lips, tongue, and soft palette.
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No, the other thing -- palate. If I were a pinter, I'd whack you with my
palette.
--
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/
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Skitt
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2004 6:06 am
Post subject: Re: vowel lengths in English |
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Skitt rakstija:
| Quote: | don groves rakstija:
The mouth has three movable parts that contribute to speech,
lips, tongue, and soft palette.
No, the other thing -- palate. If I were a pinter, I'd whack you
with my palette.
|
Punter. Panter. Pointer. Ah -- painter.
--
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/ |
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rzed
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2004 6:07 am
Post subject: Re: vowel lengths in English |
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"Skitt" <skitt99@comcast.net> wrote in news:2vd3eoF2j5mldU1@uni-
berlin.de:
| Quote: |
Skitt rakstija:
don groves rakstija:
The mouth has three movable parts that contribute to speech,
lips, tongue, and soft palette.
No, the other thing -- palate. If I were a pinter, I'd whack
you
with my palette.
Punter. Panter. Pointer. Ah -- painter.
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Pinter n. 1. Half a quarter.
--
rzed
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don groves
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2004 6:07 am
Post subject: Re: vowel lengths in English |
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In article <2vd2pbF2ivtefU1@uni-berlin.de>, Dylan Nicholson at
wizofaus@hotmail.com exposited:
| Quote: | "don groves" <dgroves@domain.net> wrote in message
news:MPG.1bfaf42149a17a58989aca@news.individual.net...
In article <41912078$0$2677$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au>, Dylan
Nicholson at wizofaus@hotmail.com exposited:
"don groves" <dgroves@domain.net> wrote in message
news:MPG.1bfaa2cc1faebe12989ac3@news.individual.net...
Mine is definitely "No-ooh".
I'd be interesting in hearing a recording of that.
^ er...hmm
I'll see if I can hook up my mic and make a .wav file. No place
to post it though. Gotta get off my duff and set up a web site.
BobC is always happy to accept voice samples, especially
unusual ones.
Yes, but there are diphthongs in Spanish, and other languages.
I'm just commenting that "o-u" is perhaps a very rare one,
although you claim to use it.
I agree the "o-u" is not as common as the others but it's there
nonetheless.
I lost Carmen's post before I could respond, so I'll answer here
here and maybe she'll read it.
He, actually.
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So sorry Carmen, please forgive me.
--
dg (domain=ccwebster) |
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don groves
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2004 6:07 am
Post subject: Re: vowel lengths in English |
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In article <Xns959CCEF3B337jreeder@63.223.5.95>, rzed at
jello@comics.com exposited:
| Quote: | "Skitt" <skitt99@comcast.net> wrote in news:2vd3eoF2j5mldU1@uni-
berlin.de:
Skitt rakstija:
don groves rakstija:
The mouth has three movable parts that contribute to speech,
lips, tongue, and soft palette.
No, the other thing -- palate. If I were a pinter, I'd whack
you
with my palette.
Punter. Panter. Pointer. Ah -- painter.
Pinter n. 1. Half a quarter.
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And a poet, to boot.
--
dg (domain=ccwebster) |
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Peter Moylan
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2004 12:24 pm
Post subject: Re: vowel lengths in English |
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Michael J Hardy biped:
| Quote: | Not long ago someone -- an Australian, I think -- maybe
Peter Moylan? -- remarked in this forum that to Americans
vowel-length is non-phonemic, and he thought that was odd.
I'm an American and I had always thougth vowel-length is
non-phonemic in English.
|
It probably was me. I see that the thread has headed off in
different directions, so I'll try to stick to the point.
| Quote: | I've wondered at times what those colons in British dictionary
pronunciations meant. I now suspect they're about phonemics
vowel lengths.
Can someone confirm or disconfirm my suspicion?
|
In effect, that's correct. There probably aren't many word
pairs where the difference in length reflects a difference in
meaning - the only one I can think of for now is can/can - but
if the dictionary puts in the colon it means that the word
would sound wrong if you tried to pronounce it with a short
vowel. And vice versa: if you pronounce "cat" as [k&:t] you're
going to sound like a nonnative speaker, even though you will
be understood.
To my ears, most American speakers use long vowels in almost
all cases. (But not to the point of saying [k&:t]. What I
hear for that word in broadcast-standard English is closer to
[kE@t].) They might also be diphthongised, but that's a
different matter; a pure long vowel still precedes the glide.
| Quote: | More importantly, can someone give a reasonable account of
the role of phonemic differences in vowel length in those
versions of English that have them? -- Mike Hardy
|
Probably not. The people who know more about it than I do have
decided to discuss diphthongs instead.
--
Peter Moylan peter at ee dot newcastle dot edu dot au
http://eepjm.newcastle.edu.au (OS/2 and eCS information and software) |
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Dylan Nicholson
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2004 12:34 pm
Post subject: Re: vowel lengths in English |
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"Peter Moylan" <peter@seagoon.newcastle.edu.au> wrote in message
news:slrncp4g6k.6q2.peter@EEPJM.newcastle.edu.au...
| Quote: | Michael J Hardy biped:
Not long ago someone -- an Australian, I think -- maybe
Peter Moylan? -- remarked in this forum that to Americans
vowel-length is non-phonemic, and he thought that was odd.
I'm an American and I had always thougth vowel-length is
non-phonemic in English.
It probably was me. I see that the thread has headed off in
different directions, so I'll try to stick to the point.
I've wondered at times what those colons in British dictionary
pronunciations meant. I now suspect they're about phonemics
vowel lengths.
Can someone confirm or disconfirm my suspicion?
In effect, that's correct. There probably aren't many word
pairs where the difference in length reflects a difference in
meaning - the only one I can think of for now is can/can
|
I gave two examples: "ken" vs "cairn" and "dead" vs "dared".
Actually there's loads more examples using the same
contrast (eh vs air). |
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Carmen L. Abruzzi
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2004 12:34 pm
Post subject: Re: vowel lengths in English |
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Peter Moylan wrote:
| Quote: | Michael J Hardy biped:
Not long ago someone -- an Australian, I think -- maybe
Peter Moylan? -- remarked in this forum that to Americans
vowel-length is non-phonemic, and he thought that was odd.
I'm an American and I had always thougth vowel-length is
non-phonemic in English.
It probably was me. I see that the thread has headed off in
different directions, so I'll try to stick to the point.
I've wondered at times what those colons in British dictionary
pronunciations meant. I now suspect they're about phonemics
vowel lengths.
Can someone confirm or disconfirm my suspicion?
In effect, that's correct. There probably aren't many word
pairs where the difference in length reflects a difference in
meaning - the only one I can think of for now is can/can - but
if the dictionary puts in the colon it means that the word
would sound wrong if you tried to pronounce it with a short
vowel. And vice versa: if you pronounce "cat" as [k&:t] you're
going to sound like a nonnative speaker, even though you will
be understood.
To my ears, most American speakers use long vowels in almost
all cases. (But not to the point of saying [k&:t]. What I
hear for that word in broadcast-standard English is closer to
[kE@t].) They might also be diphthongised, but that's a
different matter; a pure long vowel still precedes the glide.
More importantly, can someone give a reasonable account of
the role of phonemic differences in vowel length in those
versions of English that have them? -- Mike Hardy
Probably not. The people who know more about it than I do have
decided to discuss diphthongs instead.
Well, certainly in my brand of AmE, vowel length is really |
(for some value of "really") the sole distinction between,
e.g. "writer" and "rider". Phonemically these are /rayt R/
and /rayd R/, but the phonetic realization is [r&I*R] and
[r&:I*R]. That is, the actual pronunciation of the second
consonant is the same, it's the length of preceding vowel
(or, rather, the first component of the diphthong) that
makes me perceive a difference between /t/ and /d/ for that
consonant. This is, as I understand it, pretty standard and
well-accepted stuff. |
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Jonathan Jordan
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2004 8:16 pm
Post subject: Re: vowel lengths in English |
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"Dylan Nicholson" <wizofaus@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:2vap3dF2jb78lU1@uni-berlin.de...
<snip>
| Quote: | I'm pretty sure I *do* understand the difference between sounds and
written symbols, and recognize that English is usually does a shoddy
job of matching the two. I'm just specifically asking about why the
phoneme for the vowel in 'gate' is called /e/. To me, it's a
diphthong from the "e" to "i" vowels as per Romance languages i.e.,
it would be spelled "gueit" in Spanish. I'd assumed then it a
phonemic transcription would be something like /geit/. The phoneme
would then be /ei/.
|
Indeed, it's often given a diphthongal transcription, such as /eI/.
| Quote: | I gather however that, perhaps in some accents more than others, the
'e' sound itself differs slighty from that in "gate" and "get". In
my own accent, this is almost imperceptible, at least to my ears.
But for others it's obviously sufficiently different that when
transcribing Spanish words, they prefer to actually use an English
transcription of, for instance, "ay", then explain that it's cut
short,
so as to remove the diphthong. But if I try this, I can't honestly
hear it as significantly different to just the 'eh' vowel in "get".
Maybe this "tense"/"lax" distinction is not especially strong in my
accent, or even Australian accents in general.
|
It makes sense that it wouldn't be. But there are quite a lot of us
for whom the vowel in "gate" is either monophthongal or only slightly
diphthongal - for us the "tense"/"lax" distinction is dominant.
As for Spanish, to my ears Spanish /e/ tends to sound "lax" (like
English /E/) before consonants, and "tense" (like English /eI/)
elsewhere. I don't know whether this reflects a genuine allophonic
difference in Spanish, or whether it's due to the effects of English
phonology.
The Spanish /ej/ sound (spelt <ei> or <ey>) sounds clearly diphthongal
to me, unlike my English /eI/.
| Quote: | The one thing I'm fairly sure *is* universal among (native) English
speakers is that they don't like words to *end* in either a lax
or tense 'e' sound - it's always a diphthong to 'i' (~ee). Hence
"lahtay" for latte or "fortay" for forte. If I try to say
"lahteh" or "forteh" without the diphthong it sounds forced and
unnatural, as though I'm trying to speak another language that
I'm not familiar with.
|
I think this is because loanwords tend to get adapted to English
phonology, and native English words don't normally end in /E/ (which I
think is what you mean by "eh"), so we end up using /eI/. As I said
above, though, it's not universal for /eI/ to be a diphthong. I say
"latte" as ['late], as if it were an English word spelt "lattay".
Jonathan |
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Dylan Nicholson
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2004 6:04 am
Post subject: Re: vowel lengths in English |
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"don groves" <dgroves@domain.net> wrote in message
news:MPG.1bfc7de07f274c4a989ae4@news.individual.net...
| Quote: | In article <2vds54F2jun0uU1@uni-berlin.de>, Dylan Nicholson at
wizofaus@hotmail.com exposited:
I gave two examples: "ken" vs "cairn" and "dead" vs "dared".
Actually there's loads more examples using the same
contrast (eh vs air).
But those aren't different in length, they're different vowels.
|
For you. I was specifically talking about typical Australian
accents. |
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don groves
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2004 6:05 am
Post subject: Re: vowel lengths in English |
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In article <2vds54F2jun0uU1@uni-berlin.de>, Dylan Nicholson at
wizofaus@hotmail.com exposited:
| Quote: | "Peter Moylan" <peter@seagoon.newcastle.edu.au> wrote in message
news:slrncp4g6k.6q2.peter@EEPJM.newcastle.edu.au...
Michael J Hardy biped:
Not long ago someone -- an Australian, I think -- maybe
Peter Moylan? -- remarked in this forum that to Americans
vowel-length is non-phonemic, and he thought that was odd.
I'm an American and I had always thougth vowel-length is
non-phonemic in English.
It probably was me. I see that the thread has headed off in
different directions, so I'll try to stick to the point.
I've wondered at times what those colons in British dictionary
pronunciations meant. I now suspect they're about phonemics
vowel lengths.
Can someone confirm or disconfirm my suspicion?
In effect, that's correct. There probably aren't many word
pairs where the difference in length reflects a difference in
meaning - the only one I can think of for now is can/can
I gave two examples: "ken" vs "cairn" and "dead" vs "dared".
Actually there's loads more examples using the same
contrast (eh vs air).
|
But those aren't different in length, they're different vowels.
--
dg (domain=ccwebster) |
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Peter Moylan
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2004 12:58 pm
Post subject: Re: vowel lengths in English |
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Dylan Nicholson biped:
| Quote: |
"don groves" <dgroves@domain.net> wrote in message
news:MPG.1bfc7de07f274c4a989ae4@news.individual.net...
In article <2vds54F2jun0uU1@uni-berlin.de>, Dylan Nicholson at
wizofaus@hotmail.com exposited:
I gave two examples: "ken" vs "cairn" and "dead" vs "dared".
Actually there's loads more examples using the same
contrast (eh vs air).
But those aren't different in length, they're different vowels.
For you. I was specifically talking about typical Australian
accents.
|
For me, "dared" has a diphthong: [dE:@d]. (While "dead", of course,
is a simple short [dEd].) But I'm with you on "ken" vs "cairn",
where for me the vowel length is the only difference.
Strangely enough, the Queensland town of Cairns is [k&:nz] rather
than the expected [kE:nz]. I had to listen to many banana benders
before understanding that, and it's a name I still have trouble
pronouncing.
--
Peter Moylan peter at ee dot newcastle dot edu dot au
http://eepjm.newcastle.edu.au (OS/2 and eCS information and software) |
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don groves
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2004 4:05 am
Post subject: Re: vowel lengths in English |
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In article <2vg7ssF2l2grmU1@uni-berlin.de>, Dylan Nicholson at
wizofaus@hotmail.com exposited:
| Quote: |
"don groves" <dgroves@domain.net> wrote in message
news:MPG.1bfc7de07f274c4a989ae4@news.individual.net...
In article <2vds54F2jun0uU1@uni-berlin.de>, Dylan Nicholson at
wizofaus@hotmail.com exposited:
I gave two examples: "ken" vs "cairn" and "dead" vs "dared".
Actually there's loads more examples using the same
contrast (eh vs air).
But those aren't different in length, they're different vowels.
For you. I was specifically talking about typical Australian
accents.
|
Ah, sorry.
--
dg (domain=ccwebster) |
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Michael J Hardy
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2004 5:13 am
Post subject: Re: vowel lengths in English |
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Dylan Nicholson (wizofaus@hotmail.com) wrote:
| Quote: | Not sure how or if non-rhotic Americans distinguish these pairs.
Certainly those pairs are distinguished in non-rhotic American
English, by the fact that the "r" sound is present.
Um, that sentence is a contradiction. If an accent is rhotic, or
the postvocalic "r" is present.
|
Sorry -- haste makes waste; I thought you meant "rhotic Americans".
-- Mike Hardy |
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Dylan Nicholson
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2004 5:26 am
Post subject: Re: vowel lengths in English |
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"Michael J Hardy" <mjhardy@mit.edu> wrote in message
news:4193e40e$0$561$b45e6eb0@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu...
| Quote: | Dylan Nicholson (wizofaus@hotmail.com) wrote:
Not sure how or if non-rhotic Americans distinguish these pairs.
Certainly those pairs are distinguished in non-rhotic American
English, by the fact that the "r" sound is present.
Um, that sentence is a contradiction. If an accent is rhotic, or
the postvocalic "r" is present.
Sorry -- haste makes waste; I thought you meant "rhotic Americans".
You weren't the only hasty one. I managed to type "if" for "either", |
although somehow you managed to work out what I meant. |
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