Another "i" question

[TIDEBED]

Here's a less technical explanation:

Though we never really pronounce words exactly the same way, I tend to
pronounce these 2 words with approximately the same vowel sound.

Have you considered dialectal differences? I believe "Standard" American
English pronunciation pronounces them the same.

:-)

[Glynis Baguley]

In article <3l3825$2...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> IS...@physics.utexas.edu (Isaac M. Mandelberg) writes:
> I have a question about the distinction between various pronunciations (at
> least American) of the long "i" sound. Consider two examples:
>
> bite pie
>
> These are pronounced differently, yet when I looked then up in two different
> dictionaries, they were given the same pronunciation. In fact, a look at the
> table of pronunciation symbols offers both of them as examples of the only
> long "i" sound that it recognizes. Any insights appreciated.
>

The pronunciations are phonetically distinct, but not phonemically;
they are allophones of the same phoneme. That is, how the sound is
pronounced depends on its phonological environment, and there are no
words that are distinguished only by the difference in the two sounds,
ie no minimal pairs.

Compare the /k/ sound at the beginning of the words `keep' and `cool'.
They're different sounds, but in English we use one before front
vowels and the other before back vowels. The difference is not
significant for us and they're similar enough that we think of them as
the same sound.

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