Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss

The AmE 'o' sound

14 views
Skip to first unread message

Stewart Gordon

unread,
Nov 2, 2004, 10:31:05 AM11/2/04
to
I've noticed on American-oriented dictionaries/wordlists dotted about
the WWW that the sound of the letter 'o' tends to be written as 'ah',
e.g. "KAHNskript".

This has kind-of surprised me, as surely to Americans it's the 'o'
sound. Moreover, in sources that use IPA I've variously seen it written
as /a/, /a:/, /A:/, /A/, /O:/. (For that matter, CALD and CDAE don't
seem to be able to make up their mind.) Here in Britain, /A:/ is used
as in 'father', 'path' and 'cart' (OK, so there are regional
differences), whereas /A./ is our 'o' sound as in 'box'.

To me, 'ah' in a pronunciation would mean /A:/. To my ears, an American
'o' sounds similar but by no means identical to an /A:/. The presence
of renderings of AmE 'o' as 'ah' suggests that it makes sense to some
extent - do many of you across the pond have the same vowel in 'father',
'aunt' etc. as in 'dog', 'box', etc.?

Stewart.

Harlan Messinger

unread,
Nov 2, 2004, 10:50:51 AM11/2/04
to

"Stewart Gordon" <smjg...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:cm897p$dtu$1...@sun-cc204.lut.ac.uk...

> I've noticed on American-oriented dictionaries/wordlists dotted about
> the WWW that the sound of the letter 'o' tends to be written as 'ah',
> e.g. "KAHNskript".
>
> This has kind-of surprised me, as surely to Americans it's the 'o'
> sound.

"Ah" is less ambiguous. To be unambiguous about the "long o" sound in
"soap", I'd generally write "oh" in informal environments (i.e., not for the
sci.lang eggheads), but if a word were rendered phonetically with just "o"
I'd probably assume it was meant to be "long o" as well. And indeed, in my
speech, the first syllable of "conscript" sounds just like both the word
"con" and the surname "Kahn".

> Moreover, in sources that use IPA I've variously seen it written
> as /a/, /a:/, /A:/, /A/, /O:/. (For that matter, CALD and CDAE don't
> seem to be able to make up their mind.) Here in Britain, /A:/ is used
> as in 'father', 'path' and 'cart' (OK, so there are regional
> differences),

For me, these are three different sounds (particularly since I pronounce the
"r" in "cart").

> whereas /A./ is our 'o' sound as in 'box'.
>
> To me, 'ah' in a pronunciation would mean /A:/. To my ears, an American
> 'o' sounds similar but by no means identical to an /A:/.

I do think it depends on which part of the US you're talking about.

> The presence
> of renderings of AmE 'o' as 'ah' suggests that it makes sense to some
> extent - do many of you across the pond have the same vowel in 'father',
> 'aunt' etc. as in 'dog', 'box', etc.?

"Aunt" is a separate issue because, like "either" and "often", it has two
alternate pronunciations that are independent of other dialectal variations:
/Ant/ and /&nt/.

jerry_f...@yahoo.com

unread,
Nov 2, 2004, 11:21:51 AM11/2/04
to
Harlan Messinger wrote:
> "Stewart Gordon" <smjg...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:cm897p$dtu$1...@sun-cc204.lut.ac.uk...
> > I've noticed on American-oriented dictionaries/wordlists dotted
about
> > the WWW that the sound of the letter 'o' tends to be written as
'ah',
> > e.g. "KAHNskript".
> >
> > This has kind-of surprised me, as surely to Americans it's the 'o'
> > sound.

I was taught in school (in Cleveland, Ohio) that the "short o" sound
was the same as the "broad a" sound of "father", "spa", etc.

> "Ah" is less ambiguous. To be unambiguous about the "long o" sound in
> "soap", I'd generally write "oh" in informal environments (i.e., not
for the
> sci.lang eggheads), but if a word were rendered phonetically with
just "o"
> I'd probably assume it was meant to be "long o" as well. And indeed,
in my
> speech, the first syllable of "conscript" sounds just like both the
word
> "con" and the surname "Kahn".

Also in mine.

> > Moreover, in sources that use IPA I've variously seen it written
> > as /a/, /a:/, /A:/, /A/, /O:/. (For that matter, CALD and CDAE
don't
> > seem to be able to make up their mind.) Here in Britain, /A:/ is
used
> > as in 'father', 'path' and 'cart' (OK, so there are regional
> > differences),
>
> For me, these are three different sounds (particularly since I
pronounce the
> "r" in "cart").
>
> > whereas /A./ is our 'o' sound as in 'box'.
> >
> > To me, 'ah' in a pronunciation would mean /A:/. To my ears, an
American
> > 'o' sounds similar but by no means identical to an /A:/.
>
> I do think it depends on which part of the US you're talking about.

I've heard several times that "bother" rhymes with "father" for pretty
much all Americans outside of eastern New England. Anyone in sci.lang
know how true that is?

> > The presence
> > of renderings of AmE 'o' as 'ah' suggests that it makes sense to
some
> > extent - do many of you across the pond have the same vowel in
'father',
> > 'aunt' etc. as in 'dog', 'box', etc.?
>
> "Aunt" is a separate issue because, like "either" and "often", it has
two
> alternate pronunciations that are independent of other dialectal
variations:
> /Ant/ and /&nt/.

And a third, /Ont/ ("awnt"), which I've heard from a number of
Americans who distinguish between "aw" and "ah". I suspect this is a
spelling pronunciation, much like the way "launch" went from /lAntS/ to
/lOntS/ in England, according to the NSOED.

"Dog" is also a separate issue, as I have /O/ there and in most words
spelled with "og".

There's also a big class of words with "o" followed by a voiceless
fricative in which I have the same vowel. According to
<http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/rphappened.htm>, this was also
true in RP until fairly recently. "In Jones's time, and until around
the time of the second world war, words belonging to the standard
lexical set CLOTH (Wells 1982) were usually pronounced with the vowel
/ɔː/ (as in thought); but nowadays they are pronounced with /ɒ/ (as
in lot). Examples include cough, soft, cross, lost — words in which
the vowel is followed by a voiceless fricative." Those words are all
on my list too.
--
Jerry Friedman wonders who's going to see those IPA symbols.

Jonathan Jordan

unread,
Nov 2, 2004, 12:11:35 PM11/2/04
to
"Stewart Gordon" <smjg...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:cm897p$dtu$1...@sun-cc204.lut.ac.uk...

My understanding is that, except in Eastern New England, they usually
have the same vowel in "father" and "box", but that "aunt" and "dog"
may well be different.

In terms of the "lexical sets" of Wells's book _Accents of English_,
the relevant sets are TRAP, BATH, PALM, LOT, CLOTH and THOUGHT.

In a northern English accent like mine, the pattern is
TRAP and BATH are the same (the "short a")
PALM is on its own (the "ah" sound)
LOT and CLOTH are the same (the "short o")
THOUGHT is on its own (the "aw" sound)

In RP and other "broad a" accents, BATH is moved to join PALM.
Old-fashioned RP sometimes moves CLOTH to join THOUGHT (think of how
they say "off").

My understanding is that in a typical CINC ("cot" is not "caught") AmE
accent, the pattern is
TRAP and BATH are the same (the "short a")
PALM and LOT are the same (the "short o", or "ah" sound)
CLOTH and THOUGHT are the same (the "aw" sound)

There are of course variations on this.

Now "father" is a PALM word, "path" is a BATH words, "box" is a LOT
word, and I believe "dog" is a CLOTH word. So a CINC American is
likely to pronounce "box" and "father" with the same vowel, but "dog"
with a different one, and "path" with a third vowel.

I think "aunt" is a bit more complicated - in my accent it behaves
like a BATH word so that I pronounce "ant" and "aunt" the same, but
there seem to be some accents in which it behaves like a PALM word.

In many American accents, the LOT/PALM vowel can sound to my ears like
my TRAP/BATH vowel.

Jonathan


raymond o'hara

unread,
Nov 2, 2004, 12:20:49 PM11/2/04
to

"Stewart Gordon" <smjg...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:cm897p$dtu$1...@sun-cc204.lut.ac.uk...


They speak like that in New York, Robert Kennedy was always called Bahbby
Kinnedy. People think that here in Boston we say it bahston for some reason,
we say it more to bawston I alway figured this was because of the broad A,
dropped R in words like park or harbor which we pronounce like "pahk , or
hahbuh. Anytime
I've been outside New England people want me to say"that funny poem you
people say" and I duly oblige this is followed by gales of laughter at my
accent.
The "funny poem" is "Park the car in Harvard Yard" it sounds like "pahk the
cah in hahvud yahd"


Stewart Gordon

unread,
Nov 2, 2004, 1:09:10 PM11/2/04
to
Harlan Messinger wrote:
<snip>

> "Ah" is less ambiguous. To be unambiguous about the "long o" sound in
> "soap", I'd generally write "oh" in informal environments (i.e., not
> for the sci.lang eggheads), but if a word were rendered phonetically
> with just "o" I'd probably assume it was meant to be "long o" as
> well.

Where I'm from, a single vowel in a phonetic transcription of this sort
always means the letter's usual short sound.

> And indeed, in my speech, the first syllable of "conscript" sounds
> just like both the word "con" and the surname "Kahn".

Does "Khan" sound the same as well?

<snip>


>> The presence of renderings of AmE 'o' as 'ah' suggests that it
>> makes sense to some extent - do many of you across the pond have
>> the same vowel in 'father', 'aunt' etc. as in 'dog', 'box', etc.?
>
> "Aunt" is a separate issue because, like "either" and "often", it has
> two alternate pronunciations that are independent of other dialectal
> variations: /Ant/ and /&nt/.

I see. FTM, how do you pronounce "au" as in "cause" or "automatic"?
(These are both /O:/ in BrE - "aunt" is an exception and is /A:nt/)

Stewart.

Peter T. Daniels

unread,
Nov 2, 2004, 1:25:32 PM11/2/04
to
raymond o'hara wrote:

> They speak like that in New York, Robert Kennedy was always called Bahbby
> Kinnedy.

Wrong. Unlike much of the Midwest, we distinguish /in/ from /en/.
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net

Harlan Messinger

unread,
Nov 2, 2004, 2:13:53 PM11/2/04
to

"Stewart Gordon" <smjg...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:cm8ig7$fv6$1...@sun-cc204.lut.ac.uk...

> Harlan Messinger wrote:
> <snip>
> > "Ah" is less ambiguous. To be unambiguous about the "long o" sound in
> > "soap", I'd generally write "oh" in informal environments (i.e., not
> > for the sci.lang eggheads), but if a word were rendered phonetically
> > with just "o" I'd probably assume it was meant to be "long o" as
> > well.
>
> Where I'm from, a single vowel in a phonetic transcription of this sort
> always means the letter's usual short sound.
>
> > And indeed, in my speech, the first syllable of "conscript" sounds
> > just like both the word "con" and the surname "Kahn".
>
> Does "Khan" sound the same as well?

Yes.

>
> <snip>
> >> The presence of renderings of AmE 'o' as 'ah' suggests that it
> >> makes sense to some extent - do many of you across the pond have
> >> the same vowel in 'father', 'aunt' etc. as in 'dog', 'box', etc.?
> >
> > "Aunt" is a separate issue because, like "either" and "often", it has
> > two alternate pronunciations that are independent of other dialectal
> > variations: /Ant/ and /&nt/.
>
> I see. FTM, how do you pronounce "au" as in "cause" or "automatic"?

For me those are /O/.

Jonathan Jordan

unread,
Nov 2, 2004, 2:32:51 PM11/2/04
to
"Stewart Gordon" <smjg...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:cm8ig7$fv6$1...@sun-cc204.lut.ac.uk...

<snip>

> I see. FTM, how do you pronounce "au" as in "cause" or "automatic"?
> (These are both /O:/ in BrE - "aunt" is an exception and is /A:nt/)

For sufficiently small values of BrE.

Although <au> normally represents the "caught" vowel in my variety of BrE, I
can think of several groups of exceptions - "cat" vowel in "aunt" and
"laugh", "cot" vowel in "sausage" and "Australia" (and a few others), "cold"
vowel in "fault", and then there's Dolgellau.

Jonathan


Areff

unread,
Nov 2, 2004, 2:55:49 PM11/2/04
to
Stewart Gordon wrote:
> I've noticed on American-oriented dictionaries/wordlists dotted about
> the WWW that the sound of the letter 'o' tends to be written as 'ah',
> e.g. "KAHNskript".
>
> This has kind-of surprised me, as surely to Americans it's the 'o'
> sound.

Most American speakers merge "short o" with "ah". The main exception, I
believe, is Eastern New England speakers.

> To me, 'ah' in a pronunciation would mean /A:/. To my ears, an American
> 'o' sounds similar but by no means identical to an /A:/.

Depends on what region you're talking about.

> The presence
> of renderings of AmE 'o' as 'ah' suggests that it makes sense to some
> extent - do many of you across the pond have the same vowel in 'father',
> 'aunt' etc. as in 'dog', 'box', etc.?

Many Americans pronounce "aunt" like "ant". Others use the 'father' vowel,
and I believe there are some that use the "caught" vowel. This cuts across
dialectal boundaries to some degree, AIUI, because the "father"
pronunciation of "aunt" seems to be an old prestige pronunciation.
Ordinary Eastern New England speakers use the 'father' vowel in "aunt".

As for "dog", for most Americans who do not merge 'cot' and 'caught',
"dog" has the "caught" vowel. I would assume that there are renegade
British dialects where this is true too.

--
Steny '08!

Areff

unread,
Nov 2, 2004, 3:02:23 PM11/2/04
to
Jonathan Jordan wrote:

> Old-fashioned RP sometimes moves CLOTH to join THOUGHT (think of how
> they say "off").
>
> My understanding is that in a typical CINC ("cot" is not "caught") AmE
> accent, the pattern is
> TRAP and BATH are the same (the "short a")
> PALM and LOT are the same (the "short o", or "ah" sound)
> CLOTH and THOUGHT are the same (the "aw" sound)

You are correct, sir. In my accent (Postwar New York Prestige
Standard[TM]), "trap" and "bath" have the two different short a's (be-able
can and tin can, respectively). I use 'caught' in "cloth", as also in
"moth", "broth", "froth", but not "Goth" (I suspect because I learned
'Goth' after learning 'Gothic').

> There are of course variations on this.
>
> Now "father" is a PALM word, "path" is a BATH words, "box" is a LOT
> word, and I believe "dog" is a CLOTH word.

You are correct, sir. In New York English, that great dialect that
embraces speakers as different as me and Dr. Daniels, "dog" is the one -og
word that is in the caught class, whereas in, say, ErkE (the dialect
spoken in the Chicago Region), such words as "hog", "log" and "frog" are
also in the caught class.

> In many American accents, the LOT/PALM vowel can sound to my ears like
> my TRAP/BATH vowel.

That would be ErkE and closely related dialects of the Upper Midwest and
Inland North.

--
Steny '08!

Mike Lyle

unread,
Nov 2, 2004, 3:40:04 PM11/2/04
to
raymond o'hara wrote:
[...]

> The "funny poem" is "Park the car in Harvard Yard" it sounds like
> "pahk the cah in hahvud yahd"

How very odd! Doesn't sound remotely funny to me. It's a bloody hoot
when West of England yokels say "parrk the carr in harrvurrd yarrd",
though.

Mike.


jerry_f...@yahoo.com

unread,
Nov 2, 2004, 5:51:24 PM11/2/04
to

And this is without even touching HORSE, HOARSE, and ORANGE (if that's
what Wells calls them). All the same vowel for me.

> In RP and other "broad a" accents, BATH is moved to join PALM.
> Old-fashioned RP sometimes moves CLOTH to join THOUGHT (think of how
> they say "off").
>
> My understanding is that in a typical CINC ("cot" is not "caught")
AmE
> accent, the pattern is
> TRAP and BATH are the same (the "short a")
> PALM and LOT are the same (the "short o", or "ah" sound)
> CLOTH and THOUGHT are the same (the "aw" sound)
>
> There are of course variations on this.

One is that PALM (if that's limited to the -alm words) can be the same
as THOUGHT. Aaron Dinkin said in a.u.e. that this originated as a
spelling pronunciation (by analogy with the -alk words, I imagine), and
who am I to argue? Since you're all dying to know, I think of /pOm/ as
my "correct" pronunciation but I believe I say /pAm/ a lot.

Maybe I should mention, in case Stewart isn't confused enough, that my
/O/ in "thought", "talk", etc., is quite noticeably different from my
/O/ in "horse", and would probably sound like /A/ to an RP speaker (who
didn't have phonological training or a lot of familiarity with American
accents).

Does anyone here know the history of /O/? How long (/lON/) has "haw"
been considered to have the same vowel as "horse"?

> Now "father" is a PALM word, "path" is a BATH words, "box" is a LOT
> word, and I believe "dog" is a CLOTH word.

...

Is that true in Britain? In renegade dialects, as Richard Fontana
suggested? In old-fashioned RP? And what about "long", "strong",
etc.--are or were they CLOTH words in Britain? They are for me.
--
Jerry Friedman

John A Rea

unread,
Nov 2, 2004, 8:12:27 PM11/2/04
to
Stewart Gordon wrote:
> Harlan Messinger wrote:
> <snip>
>
>> "Ah" is less ambiguous. To be unambiguous about the "long o" sound in
>> "soap", I'd generally write "oh" in informal environments (i.e., not
>> for the sci.lang eggheads), but if a word were rendered phonetically
>> with just "o" I'd probably assume it was meant to be "long o" as
>> well.
>
>
> Where I'm from, a single vowel in a phonetic transcription of this sort
> always means the letter's usual short sound.
>
>> And indeed, in my speech, the first syllable of "conscript" sounds
>> just like both the word "con" and the surname "Kahn".
>
>
> Does "Khan" sound the same as well?
>
> <snip>
>
> Stewart.

For a British English pronunciation model for this word, I recommend
Coleridge's fine poem with clear rhymes:

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree,
Where Alph the sacred river ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

(Do you have Prince Albert in the can?
No, but we have Kubla.)

Jack

Steve Hayes

unread,
Nov 3, 2004, 3:36:44 AM11/3/04
to
On Tue, 02 Nov 2004 18:09:10 +0000, Stewart Gordon <smjg...@yahoo.com>
wrote:

>Harlan Messinger wrote:
><snip>
>> "Ah" is less ambiguous. To be unambiguous about the "long o" sound in
>> "soap", I'd generally write "oh" in informal environments (i.e., not
>> for the sci.lang eggheads), but if a word were rendered phonetically
>> with just "o" I'd probably assume it was meant to be "long o" as
>> well.
>
>Where I'm from, a single vowel in a phonetic transcription of this sort
>always means the letter's usual short sound.
>
>> And indeed, in my speech, the first syllable of "conscript" sounds
>> just like both the word "con" and the surname "Kahn".
>
>Does "Khan" sound the same as well?

As in Imram Khan't?

(From a spectator poster seen at a New Zealand-Pakistan cricket match).


--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

o8TY

unread,
Nov 3, 2004, 7:48:52 AM11/3/04
to
<jerry_f...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1099435884.4...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...

Perhaps since the ancient Greeks took o mikron from the Phoinikian ayin.

Ruud Harmsen

unread,
Nov 4, 2004, 5:53:45 AM11/4/04
to
2 Nov 2004 14:51:24 -0800: "jerry_f...@yahoo.com"
<jerry_f...@yahoo.com>: in sci.lang:

>Is that true in Britain? In renegade dialects, as Richard Fontana
>suggested? In old-fashioned RP? And what about "long", "strong",
>etc.--are or were they CLOTH words in Britain? They are for me.

It's very confusing to discuss the pronunciation of words by comparing
them with other words that may also vary in pronunciation between one
accent and the next. What about using IPA for clarity?

--
Ruud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com

Stewart Gordon

unread,
Nov 4, 2004, 6:29:14 AM11/4/04
to
John A Rea wrote:
<snip>

> For a British English pronunciation model for this word, I recommend
> Coleridge's fine poem with clear rhymes:
>
> In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
> A stately pleasure dome decree,
> Where Alph the sacred river ran
> Through caverns measureless to man
> Down to a sunless sea.

The 1st, 3rd and 4th lines end /kA:n/, /r&n/, /m&n/ in every form of BrE
I can call to mind.

Stewart.

Stewart Gordon

unread,
Nov 4, 2004, 6:34:15 AM11/4/04
to
Jonathan Jordan wrote:
<snip>

> In terms of the "lexical sets" of Wells's book _Accents of English_,
> the relevant sets are TRAP, BATH, PALM, LOT, CLOTH and THOUGHT.
>
> In a northern English accent like mine, the pattern is
> TRAP and BATH are the same (the "short a")
> PALM is on its own (the "ah" sound)
> LOT and CLOTH are the same (the "short o")
> THOUGHT is on its own (the "aw" sound)
<snip>

I've noticed that some people pronounce the 'l' in 'almond'. Guess
that's either a sixth set or a special case....

Stewart.

Donna Richoux

unread,
Nov 4, 2004, 7:33:42 AM11/4/04
to
John A Rea <j.r...@insightbb.com> wrote:

> Stewart Gordon wrote:

> > Does "Khan" sound the same as well?

>

> For a British English pronunciation model for this word, I recommend
> Coleridge's fine poem with clear rhymes:
>
> In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
> A stately pleasure dome decree,
> Where Alph the sacred river ran
> Through caverns measureless to man
> Down to a sunless sea.

The same poem rhymes:
slanted, enchanted, haunted
forced, burst
ever, river
far, war
dulcimer, saw, Abora

Poets have funny notions about what makes a rhyme.

On the other hand, you can fix the Khan and dulcimer problem by saying
the writer didn't intend abaab but abccb.

--
Best -- Donna Richoux

Andrew Woode

unread,
Nov 4, 2004, 7:53:49 AM11/4/04
to
John A Rea <j.r...@insightbb.com> wrote in message news:<41883079...@insightbb.com>...

> >> And indeed, in my speech, the first syllable of "conscript" sounds
> >> just like both the word "con" and the surname "Kahn".
> >
> >
> > Does "Khan" sound the same as well?
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> > Stewart.
>
> For a British English pronunciation model for this word, I recommend
> Coleridge's fine poem with clear rhymes:
>
> In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
> A stately pleasure dome decree,
> Where Alph the sacred river ran
> Through caverns measureless to man
> Down to a sunless sea.
>

That may well represent Coleridge's pronunciation (though I suspect
his era was not above eye-rhymes), and some British accents, but it
does not work in modern RP, where Khan is /kAn/.

Polik

unread,
Nov 4, 2004, 8:52:32 AM11/4/04
to

"Stewart Gordon" <smjg...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:cmd43n$irq$1...@sun-cc204.lut.ac.uk...

It is simply a spelling pronunciation.

Other people pronounce the /t/ in "often". Go figure.

Polik.
>
> Stewart.


Stewart Gordon

unread,
Nov 4, 2004, 12:31:20 PM11/4/04
to
Polik wrote:
<snip>

> Other people pronounce the /t/ in "often". Go figure.

Ah, but that's the 'normal' pronunciation AFAIC. AIH different
dictionaries give different views on this.

Stewart.

jerry_f...@yahoo.com

unread,
Nov 4, 2004, 1:42:15 PM11/4/04
to
Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> 2 Nov 2004 14:51:24 -0800: "jerry_f...@yahoo.com"
> <jerry_f...@yahoo.com>: in sci.lang:
>
> >Is that true in Britain? In renegade dialects, as Richard Fontana
> >suggested? In old-fashioned RP? And what about "long", "strong",
> >etc.--are or were they CLOTH words in Britain? They are for me.
>
> It's very confusing to discuss the pronunciation of words by
comparing
> them with other words that may also vary in pronunciation between one
> accent and the next.

Well, some linguists seem to like it--this guy Wells, anyway. But I
don't know his reasons.

> What about using IPA for clarity?

Okay, does anyone know whether "dog" is /dOg/ in Britain, perhaps in
"renegade" dialects or old-fashioned RP (the kind where "cloth" is
/klOT/)? And what about "long", "strong", etc.--are or were they
pronounced with /O/? They are for me.

--
Jerry Friedman

Jonathan Jordan

unread,
Nov 4, 2004, 1:43:01 PM11/4/04
to
"Donna Richoux" <tr...@euronet.nl> wrote in message
news:1gmq9n1.9m70zone1qtcN%tr...@euronet.nl...

> John A Rea <j.r...@insightbb.com> wrote:
>
>> Stewart Gordon wrote:
>
>> > Does "Khan" sound the same as well?
>
>>
>> For a British English pronunciation model for this word, I
>> recommend
>> Coleridge's fine poem with clear rhymes:
>>
>> In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
>> A stately pleasure dome decree,
>> Where Alph the sacred river ran
>> Through caverns measureless to man
>> Down to a sunless sea.
>
> The same poem rhymes:
> slanted, enchanted, haunted
> forced, burst
> ever, river
> far, war
> dulcimer, saw, Abora
>
> Poets have funny notions about what makes a rhyme.

I'm fairly sure that I've read things that suggest that "haunted"
would have rhymed with "slanted" etc., at least for some speakers.
The same may apply to some of the others.

As for the quoted verse, I can pronounce "Khan" to rhyme with "ran"
and "man", though I can also pronounce it like "Kahn".

Jonathan


Mike Lyle

unread,
Nov 4, 2004, 4:00:04 PM11/4/04
to

Rime isn't mathematical. There are rules to start from, of course;
but when you're good enough you can move on. Look at the astounding
rhymed prose of the Qur'an, for example: even Arab Christians find it
bewitching.

Mike.


Raymond S. Wise

unread,
Nov 4, 2004, 5:22:27 PM11/4/04
to
"Stewart Gordon" <smjg...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:cmdp18$nfi$1...@sun-cc204.lut.ac.uk...


Most of the following refer to American dictionaries:

MWCD11 gives the /t/-silent version first. It then gives the /t/-pronounced
version with an obelus preceding it (for the obelus they use the division
sign, <÷>). This means that although they find it to be used by educated
people, it remains a controversial usage.

The *Encarta World English Dictionary,* North American ed., does not list
the /t/-pronounced version.

The *Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary gives the /t/-pronounced
version as the British pronunciation, the /t/-silent pronunciation as the US
pronunciation.

The *Cambridge Dictionary of American English* gives the /t/-silent version
as the first pronunciation and the /t/-pronounced version as the second one.
The dictionary at www.infoplease.com does the same (it has two
pronunciations of each version, with two different vowels sounds used to
represent the pronunciation of the <o>).

The Oxford-Hachette French Dictionary gives the non-/t/-pronunciation first,
the /t/-pronunciation second, and follows that with a non-/t/-pronunciation
with a different sound for the <o> for the US version.

*The Century Dictionary,* an American dictionary of 1895, has only the
/t/-silent pronunciation. This means that either the /t/-pronounced version
was unknown to the editors or they disapproved of it, and so did not include
it.

It looks like the odd man out in the above is the *Cambridge Advanced
Learner's Dictionary.* I wonder, however, if they left out the British
/t/-silent version to keep the matter simple for their intended audience,
students of English as a second language.

The /t/-pronounced version is a spelling pronunciation in American English.
I expect that further research will show that it is a spelling pronunciation
in British English as well, that is, that the word was for centuries
pronounced without the /t/ (compare "soften") and the spelling pronunciation
arose sometime in the late 19th century or the early 20th century.

For regular members of the newsgroup sci.lang : Is there any consensus about
whether the "artic" pronunciation of "arctic" has been in continuous use
since the Middle English "artik," or, alternately, whether the pronunciation
of the first <c> has dropped out on more than one occasion in the history of
English?


--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA

E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com


Bob Cunningham

unread,
Nov 4, 2004, 6:18:37 PM11/4/04
to
On 4 Nov 2004 10:42:15 -0800, "jerry_f...@yahoo.com"
<jerry_f...@yahoo.com> said:

[...]

> Okay, does anyone know whether "dog" is /dOg/ in Britain, perhaps in
> "renegade" dialects or old-fashioned RP (the kind where "cloth" is
> /klOT/)?

_The Concise Oxford English Dictionary Eighth Edition_
(_COD8_) states in its introduction that it bases its
pronunciations on traditional Received Pronunciation, which
could be called old-fashioned. Later Oxford dictionaries
say that they represent more modern speech.

_COD8_ shows [dA.g] and [klA.T].

> And what about "long", "strong", etc.--are or were they
> pronounced with /O/? They are for me.

_COD8_ shows [lA.N] and [strA.N]. It has [sO:] for "saw"
and [sO:(r)] for "sore".

But _The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary_ (_NSOED_),
which states that it follows modern speech, has the same
vowels in those words.

In fact, the only pronunciation differences I've noticed
between _COD8_ and _NSOED_ are between the earlier use of
[I] and the later use of [i] in the "ing" suffix; and
between [&] and [a] for the vowel in "cat". But I suppose
there could be others I haven't noticed yet.

Another thing to think about is that [O] and [A.] are both
back, rounded vowels, and they're not greatly far apart on
the IPA Vowels chart (
http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/vowels.html ). (On that
chart our ASCII IPA [O] and {A.] are shown as IPA "reverse
C" and upside down script "a", respectively.) [O] is open
mid and [A.] is open. There's no reason I know of that some
people could not have a vowel that is between the two, so
that it might be transcribed as either one. It wouldn't
surprise me to learn that someone pronounces both "saw" and
"long" with the same vowel and that that vowel is midway
between [O] and [A.].

Note that I've used square brackets where most other people
in alt.usage.english (AUE) use slashes. I believe square
brackets are to be used in discussing how sounds are
pronounced, while slashes are appropriate for discussions
of, say, contrastive distribution. I believe that most of
the occurrences of slashes for discussing pronunciation in
AUE are in error.

Incidentally, I've tried to think of a pair to illustrate
contrastive distribution between the phonemes /O/ and /A./.
I've finally thought of "sot" and "sought", which are
homophones in my idiolect, but are pronounced [sA.t] and
[sO:t], respectively, in _NSOED_. What are some others?

Peter T. Daniels

unread,
Nov 4, 2004, 6:54:25 PM11/4/04
to
Raymond S. Wise wrote:

> For regular members of the newsgroup sci.lang : Is there any consensus about
> whether the "artic" pronunciation of "arctic" has been in continuous use
> since the Middle English "artik," or, alternately, whether the pronunciation
> of the first <c> has dropped out on more than one occasion in the history of
> English?

Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote the music for the movie "Scott of the
Antarctic." He later reused the material in a work called "Sinfonia
Antartica."

Ruud Harmsen

unread,
Nov 4, 2004, 7:23:21 PM11/4/04
to
4 Nov 2004 10:42:15 -0800: "jerry_f...@yahoo.com"
<jerry_f...@yahoo.com>: in sci.lang:

>Okay, does anyone know whether "dog" is /dOg/ in Britain, perhaps in


>"renegade" dialects or old-fashioned RP (the kind where "cloth" is
>/klOT/)? And what about "long", "strong", etc.--are or were they
>pronounced with /O/? They are for me.

dog /dOg/
cloth /klOT/ or /klO:T/
long /lON/
strong /strON/

(from memory, and confirmed from by dictionary).

Nothing renegade of specially RP about it. AFAIK they're like this
everywhere in the world except maybe the US and Canada. What else than
this could the pronunciation be?

Peter T. Daniels

unread,
Nov 4, 2004, 7:41:08 PM11/4/04
to

What would you think would be different, where in the US or Canada?

Except there is no /:/, of course.

Ruud Harmsen

unread,
Nov 4, 2004, 8:05:58 PM11/4/04
to
Fri, 05 Nov 2004 00:41:08 GMT: "Peter T. Daniels"
<gram...@worldnet.att.net>: in sci.lang:

>> >Okay, does anyone know whether "dog" is /dOg/ in Britain, perhaps in
>> >"renegade" dialects or old-fashioned RP (the kind where "cloth" is
>> >/klOT/)? And what about "long", "strong", etc.--are or were they
>> >pronounced with /O/? They are for me.
>>
>> dog /dOg/
>> cloth /klOT/ or /klO:T/
>> long /lON/
>> strong /strON/
>>
>> (from memory, and confirmed from by dictionary).
>>
>> Nothing renegade of specially RP about it. AFAIK they're like this
>> everywhere in the world except maybe the US and Canada. What else than
>> this could the pronunciation be?
>
>What would you think would be different, where in the US or Canada?

I don't know, I can't read the discussion, because it is written in
riddle-transcription. I can mysteriously understand spoken American
English, but from what I often read here, its pronunciation seems to
be completely alien in comparison to the English I learnt in school
and hear on BBC World.

>Except there is no /:/, of course.

All American vowels are llllaaaaaahhhng, I know. And nasalised, and
veeerrryyyy loowwww and in a creaky voice.

Robert Bannister

unread,
Nov 4, 2004, 8:14:50 PM11/4/04
to
Raymond S. Wise wrote:


> The /t/-pronounced version is a spelling pronunciation in American English.
> I expect that further research will show that it is a spelling pronunciation
> in British English as well, that is, that the word was for centuries
> pronounced without the /t/ (compare "soften") and the spelling pronunciation
> arose sometime in the late 19th century or the early 20th century.

More likely that the t-less version is the more modern and probably came
from the aristocracy's habit, at one time, of leavin' out letters.
--
Rob Bannister

John A Rea

unread,
Nov 4, 2004, 8:32:50 PM11/4/04
to

One thinks of the song "Merry Widow Waltz", which enforces this

"Lovers often
Hum this soft and
Sweet Refrain."

Jack

Steve Hayes

unread,
Nov 4, 2004, 9:40:49 PM11/4/04
to
On Thu, 4 Nov 2004 13:33:42 +0100, tr...@euronet.nl (Donna Richoux) wrote:

>The same poem rhymes:
> slanted, enchanted, haunted
> forced, burst
> ever, river
> far, war
> dulcimer, saw, Abora
>
>Poets have funny notions about what makes a rhyme.

Especially when stoned.

don groves

unread,
Nov 4, 2004, 10:51:52 PM11/4/04
to
In article <418ad84b....@news.saix.net>, Steve Hayes at
haye...@hotmail.com poured forth...

> On Thu, 4 Nov 2004 13:33:42 +0100, tr...@euronet.nl (Donna Richoux) wrote:
>
> >The same poem rhymes:
> > slanted, enchanted, haunted
> > forced, burst
> > ever, river
> > far, war
> > dulcimer, saw, Abora
> >
> >Poets have funny notions about what makes a rhyme.
>
> Especially when stoned.

I think those are called slant rhymes.
--
dg (domain=ccwebster)

Jonathan Jordan

unread,
Nov 5, 2004, 5:05:31 AM11/5/04
to
"Ruud Harmsen" <realemail...@rudhar.com> wrote in message
news:omhlo0tuv0v38nsda...@4ax.com...

Are you using a dictionary that uses /O/ for the "cot" vowel? All
modern British dictionaries that I'm aware of that use IPA use /A./
(or [A.], if the transcriptions are phonetic rather than phonemic).
[1]

The point is that there in some words (e.g. "cloth", "dog", "off",
"long", "strong", "coffee") speakers of British English tend to use
the "cot" vowel, /A./, while speakers of American English tend to use
the "caught" vowel (which British dictionaries usually call /O:/, but
Peter would call /Oh/, I think). [2]

In at least some of these words, however, there's an old-fashioned
southern BrE pronunciation which follows AmE, which is why your
dictionary has "cloth" with and without the length mark. Jerry's
question is whether this applied/applies to "long" and "strong" too.
I don't know the answer.

[1] [A.] is "turned script a", low back rounded vowel

[2] Of course in some accents, on both sides of the Atlantic, the
"cot" and "caught" vowels are the same.

Jonathan


Ruud Harmsen

unread,
Nov 5, 2004, 6:19:57 AM11/5/04
to
Fri, 5 Nov 2004 10:05:31 -0000: "Jonathan Jordan"
<jonatha...@sheffield.ac.uk>: in sci.lang:

>Are you using a dictionary that uses /O/ for the "cot" vowel?

The late Daniel Jones did.


>All
>modern British dictionaries that I'm aware of that use IPA use /A./
>(or [A.], if the transcriptions are phonetic rather than phonemic).
>[1]

Minute difference, only of phonetic relevance, so for a phonemic
representation, /O/ does the job fine.

>The point is that there in some words (e.g. "cloth", "dog", "off",
>"long", "strong", "coffee") speakers of British English tend to use
>the "cot" vowel, /A./, while speakers of American English tend to use
>the "caught" vowel (which British dictionaries usually call /O:/, but
>Peter would call /Oh/, I think). [2]

The British based Oxford Concise also mention /klO:T/ as an
alternative pronunciation of the word 'cloth'.

>[1] [A.] is "turned script a", low back rounded vowel

There is a sound like that in the Dutch dialect of the region where I
grew up, and it is also in Hungarian, but neither sounds anything like
the British /O/ vowel.

Ross Howard

unread,
Nov 5, 2004, 6:31:50 AM11/5/04
to
On Thu, 4 Nov 2004 21:00:04 -0000, "Mike Lyle"
<mike_l...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> wrought:

>Rime isn't mathematical.

yet nor is it erratical.

>There are rules to start from, of course;
>but when you're good enough you can move on. Look at the astounding

and resounding

>rhymed prose of the Qur'an, for example:

as just a sample

>even Arab Christians find it
>bewitching.

and quite enriching.

--
Ross Howard

Peter T. Daniels

unread,
Nov 5, 2004, 7:45:23 AM11/5/04
to

Where are you hearing Americans, then?

Peter T. Daniels

unread,
Nov 5, 2004, 7:46:17 AM11/5/04
to

"leavin'" is not an example of leaving out letters. It's substituting an
alveolar for a velar nasal.

Peter T. Daniels

unread,
Nov 5, 2004, 7:51:03 AM11/5/04
to
Jonathan Jordan wrote:

> Are you using a dictionary that uses /O/ for the "cot" vowel? All
> modern British dictionaries that I'm aware of that use IPA use /A./
> (or [A.], if the transcriptions are phonetic rather than phonemic).
> [1]

(Never mind, Cunningham will never understand. Yet he keeps crossposting
his confusion to sci.lang.)

> The point is that there in some words (e.g. "cloth", "dog", "off",
> "long", "strong", "coffee") speakers of British English tend to use
> the "cot" vowel, /A./, while speakers of American English tend to use
> the "caught" vowel (which British dictionaries usually call /O:/, but
> Peter would call /Oh/, I think). [2]

Just /O/ -- I don't think there's a contrast that /Oh/ is needed for in
AmE. (It might serve for the distinction you're talking about in BrE,
though: /O/ for "cot" and /Oh/ for "caught".) (In the non-[2] areas,
"cot" is /a/ as in "father" and "caught" is /O/.)

> In at least some of these words, however, there's an old-fashioned
> southern BrE pronunciation which follows AmE, which is why your
> dictionary has "cloth" with and without the length mark. Jerry's
> question is whether this applied/applies to "long" and "strong" too.
> I don't know the answer.
>
> [1] [A.] is "turned script a", low back rounded vowel
>
> [2] Of course in some accents, on both sides of the Atlantic, the
> "cot" and "caught" vowels are the same.

Mike Lyle

unread,
Nov 5, 2004, 9:19:17 AM11/5/04
to

Rap on, bro!

Mike.


Bob Cunningham

unread,
Nov 5, 2004, 11:08:12 AM11/5/04
to
On Fri, 05 Nov 2004 12:51:03 GMT, "Peter T. Daniels"
<gram...@worldnet.att.net> said:

[...]

> (Never mind, Cunningham will never understand. Yet
> he keeps crossposting his confusion to sci.lang.)

Not that I care what the muddleheaded Peter T Daniels thinks
of anything I say, but I would like to comment for the
benefit of readers who may mistakenly believe what he has
said.

He has demonstrated an inability or a disinclination to
understand what he's reading before he responds. He
typically remembers my saying things I haven't said.

He once agreed completely with some remarks I made about
using square brackets versus slashes, but went on to say
that that wasn't what I had said in the past. I have never
changed what I have had to say on that subject since long
before I first mentioned it in sci.lang.

One example of his foolishness was when he thought he had
found dozens of questions in a posting of mine in which I
had asked only one or two.

Peter T. Daniels

unread,
Nov 5, 2004, 1:10:56 PM11/5/04
to
Bob Cunningham wrote:
>
> On Fri, 05 Nov 2004 12:51:03 GMT, "Peter T. Daniels"
> <gram...@worldnet.att.net> said:
>
> [...]
>
> > (Never mind, Cunningham will never understand. Yet
> > he keeps crossposting his confusion to sci.lang.)
>
> Not that I care what the muddleheaded Peter T Daniels thinks
> of anything I say, but I would like to comment for the
> benefit of readers who may mistakenly believe what he has
> said.
>
> He has demonstrated an inability or a disinclination to
> understand what he's reading before he responds. He
> typically remembers my saying things I haven't said.
>
> He once agreed completely with some remarks I made about
> using square brackets versus slashes, but went on to say
> that that wasn't what I had said in the past. I have never
> changed what I have had to say on that subject since long
> before I first mentioned it in sci.lang.

Perhaps Mr. Cunningham got it right once in the past, but the message he
sent to sci.lang yesterday continued to reveal the confusion he usually
displayed.

> One example of his foolishness was when he thought he had
> found dozens of questions in a posting of mine in which I
> had asked only one or two.

Mr. Cunningham likes to harp on the fact that he was unfamiliar with the
phenomenon of "indirect question."

Bob Cunningham

unread,
Nov 5, 2004, 2:29:50 PM11/5/04
to
On Fri, 05 Nov 2004 18:10:56 GMT, "Peter T. Daniels"
<gram...@worldnet.att.net> said:

> Bob Cunningham wrote:

> > On Fri, 05 Nov 2004 12:51:03 GMT, "Peter T. Daniels"
> > <gram...@worldnet.att.net> said:

> > [...]

> > > (Never mind, Cunningham will never understand. Yet
> > > he keeps crossposting his confusion to sci.lang.)

> > Not that I care what the muddleheaded Peter T Daniels thinks
> > of anything I say, but I would like to comment for the
> > benefit of readers who may mistakenly believe what he has
> > said.

> > He has demonstrated an inability or a disinclination to
> > understand what he's reading before he responds. He
> > typically remembers my saying things I haven't said.

> > He once agreed completely with some remarks I made about
> > using square brackets versus slashes, but went on to say
> > that that wasn't what I had said in the past. I have never
> > changed what I have had to say on that subject since long
> > before I first mentioned it in sci.lang.

> Perhaps Mr. Cunningham got it right once in the past, but
> the message he sent to sci.lang yesterday continued to
> reveal the confusion he usually displayed.

Daniels likes to hint at error without being specific. That
way he's harder to pin down. So far as I know I said
nothing yesterday that was any different from what I've
always said about square brackets versus slashes, and I
continue to believe that what I said was correct.

If Daniels were a respectable sort of person, he would be
specific about what he thought was wrong with what I said.
But he doesn't seem to be, so he probably won't. I would
expect to find that anything he claims was wrong with what I
said can be supported by references to the literature.

Daniels should put up or shut up. Of the two I would prefer
the latter, so long as it was permanent.

> > One example of his foolishness was when he thought he had
> > found dozens of questions in a posting of mine in which I
> > had asked only one or two.

> Mr. Cunningham likes to harp on the fact that he was
> unfamiliar with the phenomenon of "indirect question."

Daniels still fails to understand that he fantasized
indirect questions where there were no indirect questions.

Peter T. Daniels

unread,
Nov 5, 2004, 4:56:11 PM11/5/04
to

I got tired of explaining it to him. If he didn't get it the first dozen
times, I doubt he'll get it the thirteenth.

> > > One example of his foolishness was when he thought he had
> > > found dozens of questions in a posting of mine in which I
> > > had asked only one or two.
>
> > Mr. Cunningham likes to harp on the fact that he was
> > unfamiliar with the phenomenon of "indirect question."
>
> Daniels still fails to understand that he fantasized
> indirect questions where there were no indirect questions.

I don't know why he thinks anyone cares, but if anyone do, they can find
the message for themself. It was many years ago.

Brian M. Scott

unread,
Nov 5, 2004, 9:49:25 PM11/5/04
to
On Fri, 05 Nov 2004 12:19:57 +0100, Ruud Harmsen
<realemail...@rudhar.com> wrote in
<news:68omo0t5oj9umfkam...@4ax.com> in
sci.lang,alt.usage.english:

> Fri, 5 Nov 2004 10:05:31 -0000: "Jonathan Jordan"
> <jonatha...@sheffield.ac.uk>: in sci.lang:

[...]

>>[1] [A.] is "turned script a", low back rounded vowel

> There is a sound like that in the Dutch dialect of the region where I
> grew up, and it is also in Hungarian, but neither sounds anything like
> the British /O/ vowel.

Not true. The /A./ of <cot>, <not>, etc. can be very close
to Hungarian <a>.

Brian

Ruud Harmsen

unread,
Nov 6, 2004, 5:11:18 AM11/6/04
to
Fri, 05 Nov 2004 12:45:23 GMT: "Peter T. Daniels"
<gram...@worldnet.att.net>: in sci.lang:

>> All American vowels are llllaaaaaahhhng, I know. And nasalised, and


>> veeerrryyyy loowwww and in a creaky voice.
>
>Where are you hearing Americans, then?

On television (in television? prepositions are a nightmare in
English). Most of them, especially young people, talk like that.
Extreme example: The Nanny. One of the ugliest voices I've ever heard.

Peter T. Daniels

unread,
Nov 6, 2004, 7:32:47 AM11/6/04
to

If you think Fran Drescher's stage persona is typically American, you
have a _lot_ of American-studying to do.

("on television" is correct)

Can you provide a _legitimate_ example of "all Americans" talking as you
claim?

Ruud Harmsen

unread,
Nov 6, 2004, 6:57:58 PM11/6/04
to
>> On television (in television? prepositions are a nightmare in
>> English). Most of them, especially young people, talk like that.
>> Extreme example: The Nanny. One of the ugliest voices I've ever heard.

Sat, 06 Nov 2004 12:32:47 GMT: "Peter T. Daniels"
<gram...@worldnet.att.net>: in sci.lang:


>If you think Fran Drescher's stage persona is typically American, you
>have a _lot_ of American-studying to do.

She's probably a persiflage, but the real thing is almost as bad. Not
all American accents are alike of course, I do know that.

>("on television" is correct)

Sigh of relief.

>Can you provide a _legitimate_ example of "all Americans" talking as you
>claim?

There is new TV show on Dutch TV now, of American descent, where young
girls around 18 try to become models. My daughters and wife watch it,
I don't. I hear them talk while I sit behind my computer. They all
talk with those very low, creaky voices, especially at the end of
sentences. Although some of the girls look nice, the way they talk
makes me almost forget I'm a heterosexual. It is just so ugly. Sounds
like a speech defect, in bad need of consulting a logopedist.
'Sex and the city' is another example.

Similar voice effects, but less ugly, occur in Finnish, and in Asian
languages like Thai and Indonesian.
Some German men do similar things, like constantly raising the larynx,
which results in an unpleasantly loud voice. Many other don't though.

All of these effect are different, and I couldn't accurately describe
the differences. But I do hear them.

(PS. I may have been using words here that don't exist in English, too
tired to look them up, although I have plenty of dictionaries within
reach).

Areff

unread,
Nov 6, 2004, 7:37:13 PM11/6/04
to
Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> There is new TV show on Dutch TV now, of American descent, where young
> girls around 18 try to become models. My daughters and wife watch it,
> I don't. I hear them talk while I sit behind my computer. They all
> talk with those very low, creaky voices, especially at the end of
> sentences. Although some of the girls look nice, the way they talk
> makes me almost forget I'm a heterosexual. It is just so ugly. Sounds
> like a speech defect, in bad need of consulting a logopedist.
> 'Sex and the city' is another example.

Oy! Who has better speech than Cynthia Nixon, a speaker of my accent,
Postwar New York Prestige Standard?

--
Steny '08!

raymond o'hara

unread,
Nov 6, 2004, 8:36:57 PM11/6/04
to

"Ruud Harmsen" <realemail...@rudhar.com> wrote in message
news:11pqo05aare8sift1...@4ax.com...


This post says a lot but you and nothing about accents.


Peter T. Daniels

unread,
Nov 7, 2004, 9:09:39 AM11/7/04
to
Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>
> >> On television (in television? prepositions are a nightmare in
> >> English). Most of them, especially young people, talk like that.
> >> Extreme example: The Nanny. One of the ugliest voices I've ever heard.
>
> Sat, 06 Nov 2004 12:32:47 GMT: "Peter T. Daniels"
> <gram...@worldnet.att.net>: in sci.lang:

> >If you think Fran Drescher's stage persona is typically American, you
> >have a _lot_ of American-studying to do.
>
> She's probably a persiflage, but the real thing is almost as bad.

I don't see that you've provided any examples of "the real thing" so
far.

> Not
> all American accents are alike of course, I do know that.

You're not talking about accent, you're talking about timbre, affect,
etc.

> >("on television" is correct)
>
> Sigh of relief.
>
> >Can you provide a _legitimate_ example of "all Americans" talking as you
> >claim?
>
> There is new TV show on Dutch TV now, of American descent, where young
> girls around 18 try to become models. My daughters and wife watch it,

What, young Dutch girls speaking Dutch? The Belgian and Dutch women I
met in Antwerp last month certainly didn't sound like that when speaking
English.

> I don't. I hear them talk while I sit behind my computer. They all
> talk with those very low, creaky voices, especially at the end of
> sentences.

That's the exact opposite of the Hollywood stereotype of teenage girls.

> Although some of the girls look nice, the way they talk
> makes me almost forget I'm a heterosexual. It is just so ugly. Sounds
> like a speech defect, in bad need of consulting a logopedist.

I guess this is what you're referring to below -- we just say "speech
therapist."

> 'Sex and the city' is another example.

Of what? I don't have cable, and I've seen exactly one episode in my
life.

> Similar voice effects, but less ugly, occur in Finnish, and in Asian
> languages like Thai and Indonesian.
> Some German men do similar things, like constantly raising the larynx,
> which results in an unpleasantly loud voice. Many other don't though.

And Cambodians and Indonesians talk with very high pitch. So what?

> All of these effect are different, and I couldn't accurately describe
> the differences. But I do hear them.
>
> (PS. I may have been using words here that don't exist in English, too
> tired to look them up, although I have plenty of dictionaries within
> reach).

Don't know what else you might be talking about.

John Atkinson

unread,
Nov 7, 2004, 7:44:28 PM11/7/04
to

"Bob Cunningham" <exw...@earthlink.net> wrote
>
> Incidentally, I've tried to think of a pair to illustrate
> contrastive distribution between the phonemes /O/ and /A./.
> I've finally thought of "sot" and "sought", which are
> homophones in my idiolect, but are pronounced [sA.t] and
> [sO:t], respectively, in _NSOED_. What are some others?

bott and bought; cot and caught/court; dotter and daughter; fodder and
forder; hotty and haughty; joss and jaws (not quite); loss and laws (ditto);
moss and Morse; not and naught; otter and oughter; potter and porter; quot
and quart; rot and rort; sod and sword; tot and taught; volt and vault;
what/watt and wart; yachter and Yorta Yorta.

I can't find any words in English starting with [zO:], but.

John.


Peter T. Daniels

unread,
Nov 7, 2004, 7:58:49 PM11/7/04
to

You overlook the digraphs ...

A few pairs don't fit the pattern: loss/laws/moss/Morse all /O/
(allowing you nonrhoticism for this exercise); volt is /ow/. I don't
think I've ever heard joss or quot spoken, but I'd guess /O/ for joss.

Ruud Harmsen

unread,
Nov 8, 2004, 7:24:52 AM11/8/04
to
Sun, 07 Nov 2004 01:36:57 GMT: "raymond o'hara" <re...@comcast.net>: in
sci.lang:

> This post says a lot but you and nothing about accents.

I agree that it was totally subjective.

But the part about the strange things American do with their voices
(low and creaky) is true.

Ruud Harmsen

unread,
Nov 8, 2004, 7:28:13 AM11/8/04
to
Sun, 07 Nov 2004 14:09:39 GMT: "Peter T. Daniels"
<gram...@worldnet.att.net>: in sci.lang:

>> She's probably a persiflage, but the real thing is almost as bad.

>
>I don't see that you've provided any examples of "the real thing" so
>far.

This type of accents is so abundant it is not hard to hear examples.

>> Not
>> all American accents are alike of course, I do know that.
>
>You're not talking about accent, you're talking about timbre, affect,
>etc.

Isn't all of that part of what makes an 'accent', a pronunciation
style? To me it is.

>> There is new TV show on Dutch TV now, of American descent, where young
>> girls around 18 try to become models. My daughters and wife watch it,
>
>What, young Dutch girls speaking Dutch?

No, American girls speaking American English, of course.

>> Although some of the girls look nice, the way they talk
>> makes me almost forget I'm a heterosexual. It is just so ugly. Sounds
>> like a speech defect, in bad need of consulting a logopedist.
>
>I guess this is what you're referring to below -- we just say "speech
>therapist."

Right. This was one of the words I had doubts about.

Peter T. Daniels

unread,
Nov 8, 2004, 7:50:51 AM11/8/04
to
Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>
> Sun, 07 Nov 2004 14:09:39 GMT: "Peter T. Daniels"
> <gram...@worldnet.att.net>: in sci.lang:
>
> >> She's probably a persiflage, but the real thing is almost as bad.
> >
> >I don't see that you've provided any examples of "the real thing" so
> >far.
>
> This type of accents is so abundant it is not hard to hear examples.

You argue like SJ.

> >> Not
> >> all American accents are alike of course, I do know that.
> >
> >You're not talking about accent, you're talking about timbre, affect,
> >etc.
>
> Isn't all of that part of what makes an 'accent', a pronunciation
> style? To me it is.

No.

> >> There is new TV show on Dutch TV now, of American descent, where young
> >> girls around 18 try to become models. My daughters and wife watch it,
> >
> >What, young Dutch girls speaking Dutch?
>
> No, American girls speaking American English, of course.

Then I don't know what you meant by "of American descent." I'd say *All
in the Family* and *Sanford and Son* were TV shows on American TV, of
British descent, because they were based on British sitcoms. (Likewise
*Survivor*, for that matter -- originally done somewhere else.)

So what is this American TV show with teenage girls trying to become
models?

> >> Although some of the girls look nice, the way they talk
> >> makes me almost forget I'm a heterosexual. It is just so ugly. Sounds
> >> like a speech defect, in bad need of consulting a logopedist.
> >
> >I guess this is what you're referring to below -- we just say "speech
> >therapist."
>
> Right. This was one of the words I had doubts about.
--

Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net

Peter T. Daniels

unread,
Nov 8, 2004, 7:51:23 AM11/8/04
to
Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>
> Sun, 07 Nov 2004 01:36:57 GMT: "raymond o'hara" <re...@comcast.net>: in
> sci.lang:
>
> > This post says a lot but you and nothing about accents.
>
> I agree that it was totally subjective.
>
> But the part about the strange things American do with their voices
> (low and creaky) is true.

Repeating it doesn't make it true.

Jonathan Jordan

unread,
Nov 8, 2004, 7:55:30 AM11/8/04
to
"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:418EC4...@worldnet.att.net...

The <oss> words tend to have the "cot" vowel in non-American
varieties. (They're in Wells's CLOTH class, which tends to merge with
LOT in BrE and with THOUGHT in AmE.)

Other than the non-rhotic ones, the pair that doesn't work for me is
"volt"/"vault" - these are the same for me, both with /ow/, though I
think that's localised.

Jonathan


Ruud Harmsen

unread,
Nov 8, 2004, 8:28:39 AM11/8/04
to
Sun, 07 Nov 2004 00:57:58 +0100: Ruud Harmsen
<realemail...@rudhar.com>: in sci.lang:

>There is new TV show on Dutch TV now, of American descent, where young
>girls around 18 try to become models. My daughters and wife watch it,
>I don't. I hear them talk while I sit behind my computer. They all
>talk with those very low, creaky voices, especially at the end of
>sentences.

It's "America's next top model". Here are the audition tapes in
RealVideo:
http://www.upn.com/shows/top_model2/videos_models.shtml

Some examples of the lowness, creakiness of the voice that I referred
to earlier:

Anna and Bethany don't do it. Because their from the south? Bethany
says she's from Houston, Anna talks just like Elvis did, it seems to
me.

April at
http://www.upn.com/shows/top_model2/video/audition_april.shtml
From 00:22.00
In 'bout' in "that I'm passionate about'.
'ing' in modelling.
'y' in fotography.
00:55.00 'day' in 'it's a working day'.

Camille from New York, Jamaican parents, doesn't do it.

Catie at
http://www.upn.com/shows/top_model2/video/audition_catie.shtml
00:08.00 'el' in 'top model'
00:12.5 'in' in 'will be in'
00:22.8 'or' and 'al' in 'editorial'
00:32.0 'four' in 'thirty four'

Heather from California: Hardly any occurences.
Jenascia from Seattle and a bit of Iowa: hardly does it if at all.

Shandi at:
http://www.upn.com/shows/top_model2/video/audition_shandi.shtml
girl (22), have been (24), will be (25), Im not (41), black sheep
(50). In this last example it's not at the end, but in bla and shee,
quickly switched on, off, on and off again. It isn't especially low
here, but it is something with the vocal chord, I don't know what, I
can't describe it and can't imitate it.
But I do know it sounds very unpleasant.

Yoanna: doesn't do it.

Ruud Harmsen

unread,
Nov 8, 2004, 8:34:24 AM11/8/04
to
Mon, 08 Nov 2004 12:51:23 GMT: "Peter T. Daniels"
<gram...@worldnet.att.net>: in sci.lang:

>> But the part about the strange things American do with their voices


>> (low and creaky) is true.
>
>Repeating it doesn't make it true.

See proof in later post. Or better, listen. Requires RealPlayer.

Peter T. Daniels

unread,
Nov 8, 2004, 8:57:17 AM11/8/04
to
Jonathan Jordan wrote:

> > A few pairs don't fit the pattern: loss/laws/moss/Morse all /O/
> > (allowing you nonrhoticism for this exercise); volt is /ow/. I don't
> > think I've ever heard joss or quot spoken, but I'd guess /O/ for
> > joss.
>
> The <oss> words tend to have the "cot" vowel in non-American
> varieties. (They're in Wells's CLOTH class, which tends to merge with
> LOT in BrE and with THOUGHT in AmE.)
>
> Other than the non-rhotic ones, the pair that doesn't work for me is
> "volt"/"vault" - these are the same for me, both with /ow/, though I
> think that's localised.

What about fault? Gault? gaunt/Gaunt?

Peter T. Daniels

unread,
Nov 8, 2004, 9:00:06 AM11/8/04
to

So you've got 6 no's and 2 yes's. You give locations for the no's but
not the yes's. Thank you for disproving your own allegation, and for
showing how you even withhold relevant data in doing so.

Donna Richoux

unread,
Nov 8, 2004, 9:19:00 AM11/8/04
to
Peter T. Daniels <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:

I found the biographical info on another page. The two speakers whose
voices bother him are Midwestern -- Shandi is from Kansas City, MO, and
Catie is from Willmar MN. The others are: CA, FL, GA, NJ, NY, TX, WA.

I'm glad Ruud did find these sound clips, because now I feel I know the
particular "creak" effect he means. I've heard it all my life -- heck,
I'm related to people who talk like that -- and don't find it in any way
shocking and objectionable. It's barely noticeable to me, and it's sort
of friendly.

I find it odd that it stands out to Ruud's ears, but it seems very hard
to predict what one group will find striking in another group's speech.

Ruud, when we've finished with this, maybe you could identify where
those Dutch women come from who talk with a shrill screech that to me
sounds as if it could scrape paint off a windowsill. Why, oh why can't
you all talk like the melodious Flemish? (Just kidding, or at least
partly. I think the Belgian voices tend to be pleasantly low and round,
but this is all individual preference.)

--
Best wishes -- Donna Richoux
An American living in the Netherlands

Ruud Harmsen

unread,
Nov 8, 2004, 9:19:44 AM11/8/04
to
Mon, 08 Nov 2004 14:00:06 GMT: "Peter T. Daniels"
<gram...@worldnet.att.net>: in sci.lang:

>So you've got 6 no's and 2 yes's. You give locations for the no's but
>not the yes's.

I gave them where the girls themselves said where they were from. I
don't know about the others, and I'm not familiar enough with American
accents to be able to localize them myself

>Thank you for disproving your own allegation, /

I proved that the phenomenon exists, but also that it isn't generally
done by everyone, and that it doesn't occur as often as I thought,
even in the speech of those who do do it.

>and for
>showing how you even withhold relevant data in doing so.

It's not a question of withholding, but of not having. I'd tell you if
I knew where they're from, but I don't.

Ruud Harmsen

unread,
Nov 8, 2004, 10:07:07 AM11/8/04
to
Mon, 8 Nov 2004 15:19:00 +0100: tr...@euronet.nl (Donna Richoux): in
sci.lang:

>I'm glad Ruud did find these sound clips, because now I feel I know the
>particular "creak" effect he means. I've heard it all my life -- heck,
>I'm related to people who talk like that -- and don't find it in any way
>shocking and objectionable. It's barely noticeable to me, and it's sort
>of friendly.

Perhaps because you're used to it, because it is so common in American
English.

>I find it odd that it stands out to Ruud's ears, but it seems very hard
>to predict what one group will find striking in another group's speech.

I notice it because it never occurs in other languages I often hear,
including English from other places than North-America.

Similar things happen, as I mentioned earlier, in some languages in
South-East Asia, and in West-Afrika. But I hardly ever hear these.

Listen under breathy voice, creaky voice, murmur here:
http://hctv.humnet.ucla.edu/departments/linguistics/VowelsandConsonants/index/sounds.html

>Ruud, when we've finished with this, maybe you could identify where
>those Dutch women come from who talk with a shrill screech that to me
>sounds as if it could scrape paint off a windowsill. Why, oh why can't
>you all talk like the melodious Flemish?

I'm not particularly fond of the sound of my own language either, and
I too like its pronunciation styles from Belgium better (some of them,
many different accents exist in both countries)

>(Just kidding, or at least
>partly. I think the Belgian voices tend to be pleasantly low and round,
>but this is all individual preference.)

I agree.

Peter T. Daniels

unread,
Nov 8, 2004, 10:14:18 AM11/8/04
to
Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>
> Mon, 8 Nov 2004 15:19:00 +0100: tr...@euronet.nl (Donna Richoux): in
> sci.lang:
>
> >I'm glad Ruud did find these sound clips, because now I feel I know the
> >particular "creak" effect he means. I've heard it all my life -- heck,
> >I'm related to people who talk like that -- and don't find it in any way
> >shocking and objectionable. It's barely noticeable to me, and it's sort
> >of friendly.
>
> Perhaps because you're used to it, because it is so common in American
> English.

Found in 25% of your own sample. That's "so common"?

> >I find it odd that it stands out to Ruud's ears, but it seems very hard
> >to predict what one group will find striking in another group's speech.
>
> I notice it because it never occurs in other languages I often hear,
> including English from other places than North-America.

"Creaky voice," as Donna called it, is phonemic in Burmese.

> Similar things happen, as I mentioned earlier, in some languages in
> South-East Asia, and in West-Afrika. But I hardly ever hear these.
>
> Listen under breathy voice, creaky voice, murmur here:
> http://hctv.humnet.ucla.edu/departments/linguistics/VowelsandConsonants/index/sounds.html
>
> >Ruud, when we've finished with this, maybe you could identify where
> >those Dutch women come from who talk with a shrill screech that to me
> >sounds as if it could scrape paint off a windowsill. Why, oh why can't
> >you all talk like the melodious Flemish?
>
> I'm not particularly fond of the sound of my own language either, and
> I too like its pronunciation styles from Belgium better (some of them,
> many different accents exist in both countries)
>
> >(Just kidding, or at least
> >partly. I think the Belgian voices tend to be pleasantly low and round,
> >but this is all individual preference.)
>
> I agree.
--

Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net

Peter T. Daniels

unread,
Nov 8, 2004, 10:12:23 AM11/8/04
to

Donna managed to find it within 20 minutes of my posting.

Ruud Harmsen

unread,
Nov 8, 2004, 10:24:23 AM11/8/04
to
Mon, 08 Nov 2004 16:07:07 +0100: Ruud Harmsen
<realemail...@rudhar.com>: in sci.lang:

>Similar things happen, as I mentioned earlier, in some languages in


>South-East Asia, and in West-Afrika. But I hardly ever hear these.
>
>Listen under breathy voice, creaky voice, murmur here:
>http://hctv.humnet.ucla.edu/departments/linguistics/VowelsandConsonants/index/sounds.html

All of these are rather different, from each other and from American
English. I think the Mazatec creaky comes closest to Am-E.
Unfortunately there is only one example here:
http://hctv.humnet.ucla.edu/departments/linguistics/VowelsandConsonants/vowels/chapter12/mazatec.html
There's more here:
http://hctv.humnet.ucla.edu/departments/linguistics/VowelsandConsonants/appendix/languages/mazatec/mazatec.html
The word for 'dead' shows that the effect can be combined with a
rather high pitch, although in Am-E it is often accompanied with, or
introduced by, a low-pitched voice.

And even so, it seems the Mazatec creaky voice isn't exactly the same
thing. There are so many possibilities phonetically, that it becomes
dazzling.

Ruud Harmsen

unread,
Nov 8, 2004, 10:30:41 AM11/8/04
to
Mon, 08 Nov 2004 15:12:23 GMT: "Peter T. Daniels"
<gram...@worldnet.att.net>: in sci.lang:

>> It's not a question of withholding, but of not having. I'd tell you if


>> I knew where they're from, but I don't.
>
>Donna managed to find it within 20 minutes of my posting.

I hadn't been looking for it. Writing to sci.lang isn't my only
occupation.
I didn't expect region had much to do with it. Knowing it may often
occur in Mid-Western accents doesn't help me much, because I wouldn't
recognize one if I heard one. (I don't even know exactly where the
Mid-West is). To me, Am-E sounds pretty uniform. I can distinguish
New-York from Tennessee, maybe, but that's about it. Of course I am
willing to believe that many other differences exist, it's just that I
don't know enough about them to recognize them.

Jonathan Jordan

unread,
Nov 8, 2004, 3:04:29 PM11/8/04
to
"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:418F7B...@worldnet.att.net...

It's just before /l/ - "gaunt" is /gOnt/, as you'd expect.

I have a complicated vowel merger before /l/ which leads to the following
words all having the same vowel: doll, golf, dolphin; salt, false, fault,
vault; pole, dole, goal, gold, colt, volt. I tend to identify the merged
vowel with /ow/.

It doesn't affect words where the /l/ is followed by a vowel - "holly" and
"holy" are distinct - and it doesn't affect words like "hall" and "call",
which retain /O/, or their inflections, like "halls" and "called".

Jonathan


Peter T. Daniels

unread,
Nov 8, 2004, 3:32:21 PM11/8/04
to

Goonniss! Is it just you, or is it the Northern area you're always
careful to specify when you mention your dialect?

Richard Maurer

unread,
Nov 8, 2004, 4:38:38 PM11/8/04
to
Ruud Harmsen wrote:
They all talk with those very low, creaky voices,
especially at the end of sentences.

We discussed this a few times in alt.usage.english.
Nobody liked it, but we couldn't decide what it was modeled after.
It has always been uncommon. I haven't heard it for years.

You can search for <creaky voice>, <throat creak>, <croak voice>,
<creak voice> within alt.usage.english.
RealAnything is not allowed on this machine --
do you have wave or mp3 examples, or can somebody
verify that it is the same phenomenon as discussed before?

-- ---------------------------------------------
Richard Maurer To reply, remove half
Sunnyvale, California of a homonym of a synonym for also.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Areff

unread,
Nov 8, 2004, 6:51:26 PM11/8/04
to
Richard Maurer wrote:
> Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> They all talk with those very low, creaky voices,
> especially at the end of sentences.
>
>
>
> We discussed this a few times in alt.usage.english.
> Nobody liked it, but we couldn't decide what it was modeled after.

Actually, I sort of like it. I've heard worse speech features,
anyway.

> It has always been uncommon. I haven't heard it for years.

Say what? It is the dominant feature of all under-40 female speech in
the United States.

--
Steny '08!

Donna Richoux

unread,
Nov 8, 2004, 7:35:20 PM11/8/04
to
Ruud Harmsen <realemail...@rudhar.com> wrote:

> I didn't expect region had much to do with it. Knowing it may often
> occur in Mid-Western accents doesn't help me much, because I wouldn't
> recognize one if I heard one. (I don't even know exactly where the
> Mid-West is).

It's not "exact", being a very vague and general term, used in different
ways. To ask specifically which states are in the Midwest would generate
a very long and very boring discussion. None of the common regional
labels apply to a fixed group of states except for "New England," which
is always the same five states.

Here's someone's notion of the Midwest. Other people would not include
the column of four states on the left.
http://www.seta.iastate.edu/images/midwest.gif

>To me, Am-E sounds pretty uniform. I can distinguish
> New-York from Tennessee, maybe, but that's about it. Of course I am
> willing to believe that many other differences exist, it's just that I
> don't know enough about them to recognize them.

So I think what may be happening here is not so much that US practices
are changing but that your experience of US voices is broadening;
through such "reality-TV" opportunities as this model show, you are
hearing young people speak from regions other than what you as a
European would normally hear.

--
Best -- Donna Richoux

John Atkinson

unread,
Nov 8, 2004, 8:47:50 PM11/8/04
to

"Jonathan Jordan" <jonatha...@sheffield.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:2v98m2F...@uni-berlin.de...

Yep. That's so for my "non-American variety".

> Other than the non-rhotic ones, the pair that doesn't work for me is
> "volt"/"vault" - these are the same for me, both with /ow/, though I
> think that's localised.

My old Concise Oxford gives both /vA.lt/ and /vowlt/ as alternative
pronunciations (of course their notation is different, but that's what they
mean). I have /vA.lt/, I think, but find it difficult to distinguish it
from /ow/ before /lt/. That is, I have the beginning of part of the merger
Jonathon mentions (below) but only between /A./ and /ow/ -- /O:/ (false,
fault, vault) remains distinct -- and only when the /l/ is followed by an
unvoiced stop -- thus doll, golf and dolphin definitely have /A./ with me,
while dole, goal and gold have /ow/. Intuitively, (that is, before I
stopped to think about it) I would have said that colt had /A./ while bolt
had /ow/, but I also would have told you that they rhyme.

> JJ: I have a complicated vowel merger before /l/ which leads to the
following
> JJ: words all having the same vowel: doll, golf, dolphin; salt, false,
fault,
> JJ: vault; pole, dole, goal, gold, colt, volt. I tend to identify the
merged
> JJ: vowel with /ow/.

John.

Donna Richoux

unread,
Nov 9, 2004, 3:56:05 AM11/9/04
to
Donna Richoux <tr...@euronet.nl> wrote:

> None of the common regional
> labels apply to a fixed group of states except for "New England," which
> is always the same five states.

Sloppy work. Six states.

Peter T. Daniels

unread,
Nov 9, 2004, 8:37:58 AM11/9/04
to

Ruud showed with his own data that it isn't.

> --
> Steny '08!

Who?

Areff

unread,
Nov 9, 2004, 12:01:26 PM11/9/04
to
Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> Areff wrote:
>
>> --
>> Steny '08!
>
> Who?

So there are still people out there, including, apparently, Dr. Daniels,
who have not heard of him? Well, I predict that you will be
hearing a lot about Steny H. Hoyer before long.

--
Steny '08!

Peter T. Daniels

unread,
Nov 9, 2004, 11:00:52 PM11/9/04
to

Why? What's he running for?

Areff

unread,
Nov 10, 2004, 1:25:44 AM11/10/04
to
Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> Areff wrote:
>>
>> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>> > Areff wrote:
>> >
>> >> --
>> >> Steny '08!
>> >
>> > Who?
>>
>> So there are still people out there, including, apparently, Dr. Daniels,
>> who have not heard of him? Well, I predict that you will be
>> hearing a lot about Steny H. Hoyer before long.
>
> Why? What's he running for?

How 'bout Leader of the Free World, Dr. Daniels?

--
Steny '08!

Peter T. Daniels

unread,
Nov 10, 2004, 7:58:27 AM11/10/04
to

That's not an elected position.

Bob Cunningham

unread,
Nov 10, 2004, 8:36:37 AM11/10/04
to
On Fri, 05 Nov 2004 21:56:11 GMT, "Peter T. Daniels"
<gram...@worldnet.att.net> said:

> Bob Cunningham wrote:

> > On Fri, 05 Nov 2004 18:10:56 GMT, "Peter T. Daniels"
> > <gram...@worldnet.att.net> said:

> > > Bob Cunningham wrote:

> > > > On Fri, 05 Nov 2004 12:51:03 GMT, "Peter T. Daniels"
> > > > <gram...@worldnet.att.net> said:

> > > > [...]

> > > > > (Never mind, Cunningham will never understand. Yet
> > > > > he keeps crossposting his confusion to sci.lang.)

> > > > Not that I care what the muddleheaded Peter T Daniels thinks
> > > > of anything I say, but I would like to comment for the
> > > > benefit of readers who may mistakenly believe what he has
> > > > said.

> > > > He has demonstrated an inability or a disinclination to
> > > > understand what he's reading before he responds. He
> > > > typically remembers my saying things I haven't said.

> > > > He once agreed completely with some remarks I made about
> > > > using square brackets versus slashes, but went on to say
> > > > that that wasn't what I had said in the past. I have never
> > > > changed what I have had to say on that subject since long
> > > > before I first mentioned it in sci.lang.

> > > Perhaps Mr. Cunningham got it right once in the past, but
> > > the message he sent to sci.lang yesterday continued to
> > > reveal the confusion he usually displayed.

> > Daniels likes to hint at error without being specific. That
> > way he's harder to pin down. So far as I know I said
> > nothing yesterday that was any different from what I've
> > always said about square brackets versus slashes, and I
> > continue to believe that what I said was correct.

> > If Daniels were a respectable sort of person, he would be
> > specific about what he thought was wrong with what I said.
> > But he doesn't seem to be, so he probably won't. I would
> > expect to find that anything he claims was wrong with what I
> > said can be supported by references to the literature.

> > Daniels should put up or shut up. Of the two I would prefer
> > the latter, so long as it was permanent.

> I got tired of explaining it to him. If he didn't get it the first dozen
> times, I doubt he'll get it the thirteenth.

I don't think Daniels *ever* explained *anything* to me, but
if he did, it got lost in the flood of rude, arrogant
remarks he likes to produce.

Mostly what he likes to do, in response to a straightforward
question with a straightforward answer, is tell people to go
read a book. Anyway, I don't need explanations. My
knowledge of phonetics is more than adequate for what I want
to do with it. If I ever want to learn more, I'm sure I can
find a more reliable and congenial source of information
than the insufferably arrogant Peter T Daniels.

By the way, note that by using the vague "explaining it" he
carefully avoids saying what "it" is. He doesn't want to
say what he thinks I got wrong, because he's afraid it might
turn out I'm right. By being vague, he can say he meant any
of several topics that were discussed in the posting in
question. Slippery Pete slithers again.

> > > > One example of his foolishness was when he thought he had
> > > > found dozens of questions in a posting of mine in which I
> > > > had asked only one or two.

> > > Mr. Cunningham likes to harp on the fact that he was
> > > unfamiliar with the phenomenon of "indirect question."

> > Daniels still fails to understand that he fantasized
> > indirect questions where there were no indirect questions.

> I don't know why he thinks anyone cares, but if anyone do,
> they can find the message for themself. It was many years ago.

I mentioned it only as a good example of Daniels's
foolishness. If anyone is interested in reading the
posting, it's at http://tinyurl.com/4xn6p , or Message ID
<OlNYOZ0HVt5iip...@4ax.com>. Anyone reading that
posting should see that I stated firm opinions but asked no
questions beyond the two in the paragraph I've quoted below.

My main reason for crossposting to sci.lang was to ask if
anyone could tell me of a place on the Web where I could
find an explanation of the symbols Labov uses in his vowel
charts in various publications.

The actual wording of my courteous request, which was at the
end of a very long posting in which I rambled somewhat but
didn't ask any of the questions Daniels imagined that I
asked, was

With some uneasiness I'm going to crosspost this to
sci.lang. Often when I poke a limb into sci.lang I
pull back a bloody stump, but maybe this time will be
different. It would be quite helpful if someone over
there could provide a table of definitions of Labov's
symbols in articulatory terms, or could point to a
specific place where such a table can be found. I
would also hope to evoke some statements of informed
opinion about the meaning of statements like '/oh/
has moved'.

No one bothered to tell me, although I have little doubt
that there were people in sci.lang who could have. After a
determined session of Web surfing, I finally found a key to
the symbols by myself. You can read about that incident in
a thread at http://tinyurl.com/68lwn , or Message ID
<CQlbORBgCFMUG8...@4ax.com>#1/1 .

About "/oh/ has moved", I later learned that, impossible as
it seems to believe, linguists actually conceive of phonemes
drifting from place to place in the vowel quadrilateral
while retaining the symbols that stood for them in their
original locations. How can that not lead to chaos?
(Rhetorical question.)

ObAUE: About "many years ago": There have been discussions
in AUE about the meanings of "several", "many", and "a few".
Daniels may like to think of AD 2000 as "many years ago".
Given "several", "many" or "a few", I choose to think of it
as a few years ago. Several years ago would be like 1970.
Many years ago would be like 1860.

Peter T. Daniels

unread,
Nov 10, 2004, 9:18:32 AM11/10/04
to
Bob Cunningham wrote:

> > I got tired of explaining it to him. If he didn't get it the first dozen
> > times, I doubt he'll get it the thirteenth.
>
> I don't think Daniels *ever* explained *anything* to me, but
> if he did, it got lost in the flood of rude, arrogant
> remarks he likes to produce.
>
> Mostly what he likes to do, in response to a straightforward
> question with a straightforward answer, is tell people to go
> read a book. Anyway, I don't need explanations. My

Newsgroup postings are small. Books are copious. Mr. Cunningham
misunderstands a great deal more than can be set straight even in
numerous newsgroup postings.

> knowledge of phonetics is more than adequate for what I want
> to do with it. If I ever want to learn more, I'm sure I can
> find a more reliable and congenial source of information
> than the insufferably arrogant Peter T Daniels.

Knowledge of phonetics is the basis for understanding phonemics. It is
not equivalent to knowledge of phonemics.

> By the way, note that by using the vague "explaining it" he
> carefully avoids saying what "it" is. He doesn't want to
> say what he thinks I got wrong, because he's afraid it might
> turn out I'm right. By being vague, he can say he meant any
> of several topics that were discussed in the posting in
> question. Slippery Pete slithers again.

The meaning of "phoneme" and the usage of square and slant brackets.

> > I don't know why he thinks anyone cares, but if anyone do,
> > they can find the message for themself. It was many years ago.
>
> I mentioned it only as a good example of Daniels's
> foolishness. If anyone is interested in reading the
> posting, it's at http://tinyurl.com/4xn6p , or Message ID
> <OlNYOZ0HVt5iip...@4ax.com>. Anyone reading that
> posting should see that I stated firm opinions but asked no
> questions beyond the two in the paragraph I've quoted below.

Not surprisingly, that's his own posting, and not my response to it in
which I presumably answered the many implicit questions and tried to set
straight the many misunderstandings of what he had read.

> About "/oh/ has moved", I later learned that, impossible as
> it seems to believe, linguists actually conceive of phonemes
> drifting from place to place in the vowel quadrilateral
> while retaining the symbols that stood for them in their
> original locations. How can that not lead to chaos?
> (Rhetorical question.)

This shows that he still doesn't have the slightest clue about the
meaning of "phoneme."

> ObAUE: About "many years ago": There have been discussions
> in AUE about the meanings of "several", "many", and "a few".
> Daniels may like to think of AD 2000 as "many years ago".
> Given "several", "many" or "a few", I choose to think of it
> as a few years ago. Several years ago would be like 1970.
> Many years ago would be like 1860.

All such terms are relative. In this context, 2000 (if that's when it
was) is many years ago.

Ruud Harmsen

unread,
Nov 10, 2004, 12:00:33 PM11/10/04
to
Bob Cunningham:

>> About "/oh/ has moved", I later learned that, impossible as
>> it seems to believe, linguists actually conceive of phonemes
>> drifting from place to place in the vowel quadrilateral
>> while retaining the symbols that stood for them in their
>> original locations. How can that not lead to chaos?
>> (Rhetorical question.)

Wed, 10 Nov 2004 14:18:32 GMT: "Peter T. Daniels"
<gram...@worldnet.att.net>: in sci.lang:


>This shows that he still doesn't have the slightest clue about the
>meaning of "phoneme."

It does. Googling with:
define:phoneme
results in
http://www.google.nl/search?hl=nl&q=define%3Aphoneme&lr=
and a long of definitions with links.

Enjoy!

Bob Cunningham

unread,
Nov 10, 2004, 8:19:36 PM11/10/04
to

The latter was one of the specific points that I commented
on in the posting I mentioned where Daniels agreed
completely with what I said. I have never changed what I've
said about that subject, and I continue to believe that I'm
quite right in my understanding.

As for the meaning of "phoneme", I've read what reliable
references have to say on the subject, and I understand what
I've read quite well. Vague allusions I've read in sci.lang
suggest that the denizens of that group attach other
concepts to the word "phoneme". I'm content with what I've
read in books, and I have no reason to credit what I've read
in sci.lang. I don't know who those people are or what
their credentials are.

As I mentioned in a posting sometime ago, I've read that
there are at least two widely different concepts of
"phoneme" that are embraced by different schools of thought.
There has even been a school that insisted on treating
phonemes with no reference to semantics. I don't see how
you can establish contrastive distribution without saying
what words mean. But note that I'm not asking for an
explanation from sci.lang. If I want a credible answer,
I'll inquire in an environment where I can depend upon
getting an authoritative answer.

> > > I don't know why he thinks anyone cares, but if anyone do,
> > > they can find the message for themself. It was many years ago.

> > I mentioned it only as a good example of Daniels's
> > foolishness. If anyone is interested in reading the
> > posting, it's at http://tinyurl.com/4xn6p , or Message ID
> > <OlNYOZ0HVt5iip...@4ax.com>. Anyone reading that
> > posting should see that I stated firm opinions but asked no
> > questions beyond the two in the paragraph I've quoted below.

> Not surprisingly, that's his own posting, and not my response to it

If Daniels weren't such a klutz around Usenet (he once
admitted that he didn't even know what "Usenet" meant), he
would know that when you go to the URL I provided, you see a
link that is labeled "Complete Thread (277 articles)".
Clicking on that link gives you a clickable list of all the
articles in the thread. If Daniels weren't such a fogheaded
fool, he would know that the proper way to reference a
thread at Google Groups is to give the URL of the posting
that started the thread. That's what I did.

> in which I presumably answered the many implicit questions
> and tried to set straight the many misunderstandings of
> what he had read.

If his presumptions are often that wrong, he should
henceforth ignore them. He didn't answer "many implicit
questions" because there were no implicit questions, and his
posting wasn't nearly long enough to answer "many implicit
questions", even if there had been any implicit questions.
When I ask a question, I follow it with a question mark.

He said, among other things

One thing to remember is that [phonetic symbols] are
supposed to not change their denotation, but
/phonemic symbols/ can have different phonetic
content over different dialects or over time.

That seems contrary to the fact that two sounds represent
the same phoneme if they will be perceived by a listener to
be the same sound. Note carefully: I'm not asking sci.lang
for an explanation.

And I think the cot/caught merger is in fact pretty
recent (not going back to ancestral Scots or
something like that) -- if Nixon (born in Southern
California in 1913) had the merger, we'd have noticed
it in his speech. (I can't offhand think of other
celebrities we *know* were native Californians of
that generation.)

The fact that that paragraph starts with "and I think" tags
it as no more than an opinion, a speculation that may or may
not be born out by facts. Until someone gives me sound
evidence to the contrary, I will continue to believe that I
inherited my identical vowels in "cot" and "caught" from my
Scottish ancestors. Anyway, one doesn't "set straight a
misunderstanding" by providing a mere conjecture.

The rest of his posting is

And people who stay put's regional dialects generally
don't change over time; so when the Linguistic Atlas
research was done in the 1930s and they sought out
octo- and nonagenarians, they were recording speech
patters from well before the Civil War. Similarly,
when the DARE fieldwork was done in the 1960s, they
were gathering turn-of-the-century information (but
they questioned younger people as well).

I don't know and don't care what put those thoughts into
Daniels's head, but they're not relevant to any of my
comments in the posting he was responding to, so they can't
be useful to "set straight" even imagined misunderstandings.

> > About "/oh/ has moved", I later learned that, impossible as
> > it seems to believe, linguists actually conceive of phonemes
> > drifting from place to place in the vowel quadrilateral
> > while retaining the symbols that stood for them in their
> > original locations. How can that not lead to chaos?
> > (Rhetorical question.)

> This shows that he still doesn't have the slightest clue about the
> meaning of "phoneme."

It can't show that, because I understand quite well what
books tell me about what "phoneme" means. If "phoneme"
means something different to sci.lang posters, that's all
the more reason to stay away from sci.lang.



> > ObAUE: About "many years ago": There have been discussions
> > in AUE about the meanings of "several", "many", and "a few".
> > Daniels may like to think of AD 2000 as "many years ago".
> > Given "several", "many" or "a few", I choose to think of it
> > as a few years ago. Several years ago would be like 1970.
> > Many years ago would be like 1860.

> All such terms are relative. In this context, 2000 (if that's
> when it was) is many years ago.

"if that's when it was"?! Another indication of the weird
workings of Daniels's befuddled headbone. He looked at the
posting I gave the URL for, as evidenced by the fact that he
knew it was my posting. How could he have failed to see
that the posting was dated in June 2000? (Rhetorical
question.)

I don't know what Daniels does for a living, but if he's a
teacher I pity his poor students.

Bob Cunningham

unread,
Nov 10, 2004, 8:57:47 PM11/10/04
to

Thank you. None of the summaries says anything about
phonemes that is contrary to my understanding of the
subject. The main emphasis is on contrastive distribution.

None of the summaries suggests that a phoneme consisting of
sounds in, say, the low, back region of the vowel
quadrilateral could move to, say, the high, front region and
still be considered the same phoneme.

Is there one of the links you referenced that discusses a
phoneme *moving* from one region to another without changing
its name?

It's clear, of course, that a phoneme can contain sounds
from different regions of the vowel quadrilateral if those
sounds are perceived by a listener to be the same sound.

I think I would always perceive a difference between [A] and
[O], or between [&] and [E], so I find it hard to believe
that it's reasonable to think of the /A/ phoneme becoming an
/O/ phoneme and still be called /A/.

I pray that Peter T Daniels will not comment on this
posting. I know that if he does, based on past experience,
his comments will only be unresponsive and irritating.

By the way, I'm not interested in phoneme discussions
relating to consonants. I'm only interested in using
symbols to represent pronunciation. So far as I can
remember, consonants have never been an issue in
pronunciation discussions in alt.usage.english (AUE), while
vowels have been discussed ad nauseam.

Brian M. Scott

unread,
Nov 10, 2004, 9:53:51 PM11/10/04
to
On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 01:57:47 GMT, Bob Cunningham
<exw...@earthlink.net> wrote in
<news:p965p053nr9vue1vo...@4ax.com> in
sci.lang,alt.usage.english:

[...]

> I think I would always perceive a difference between [A] and
> [O], or between [&] and [E],

Probably, if offered examples in close succession. But a
great many native speakers of English realize /&/ as
something close to [E] and consequently hear [E] as
something approaching their /&/, not their /E/; if you're
one of them, I'd not bet that you can accurately produce [&]
and [E] in the first place.

> so I find it hard to believe
> that it's reasonable to think of the /A/ phoneme becoming an
> /O/ phoneme and still be called /A/.

ObAUE: That should be 'and still being called'.

You might try *thinking* about what you read. Someone with
the Northern Cities Shift has the same contrasts that I
have, but he realizes them very differently. His
realization of /&/, for instance, is [i@], while mine is
either [&] or a slightly higher vowel. If you want to
accommodate both of our varieties, it makes perfectly good
sense, if only on historical grounds, to call the phoneme
/&/. If you want to talk only about his variety, with no
reference to anything else, you might choose different names
for the phonemes.

[...]

Brian

Peter T. Daniels

unread,
Nov 10, 2004, 9:59:17 PM11/10/04
to

What an arrogant son of a bitch.

> As for the meaning of "phoneme", I've read what reliable
> references have to say on the subject, and I understand what
> I've read quite well. Vague allusions I've read in sci.lang
> suggest that the denizens of that group attach other
> concepts to the word "phoneme". I'm content with what I've
> read in books, and I have no reason to credit what I've read
> in sci.lang. I don't know who those people are or what
> their credentials are.

What an arrogant son of a bitch. He can look them up on his beloved
"Usenet."

> As I mentioned in a posting sometime ago, I've read that
> there are at least two widely different concepts of
> "phoneme" that are embraced by different schools of thought.
> There has even been a school that insisted on treating
> phonemes with no reference to semantics. I don't see how
> you can establish contrastive distribution without saying
> what words mean. But note that I'm not asking for an
> explanation from sci.lang. If I want a credible answer,
> I'll inquire in an environment where I can depend upon
> getting an authoritative answer.

For Zellig Harris and his school, all that is required is the
information as to whether two utterances are "same" or "different."

Rigorously, that suffices for phonemic analysis.

Peter T. Daniels

unread,
Nov 10, 2004, 10:04:25 PM11/10/04
to
Bob Cunningham wrote:
>
> On Wed, 10 Nov 2004 18:00:33 +0100, Ruud Harmsen
> <realemail...@rudhar.com> said:
>
> > Bob Cunningham:
> > >> About "/oh/ has moved", I later learned that, impossible as
> > >> it seems to believe, linguists actually conceive of phonemes
> > >> drifting from place to place in the vowel quadrilateral
> > >> while retaining the symbols that stood for them in their
> > >> original locations. How can that not lead to chaos?
> > >> (Rhetorical question.)
>
> > Wed, 10 Nov 2004 14:18:32 GMT: "Peter T. Daniels"
> > <gram...@worldnet.att.net>: in sci.lang:
> > >This shows that he still doesn't have the slightest clue about the
> > >meaning of "phoneme."
>
> > It does. Googling with:
> > define:phoneme
> > results in
> > http://www.google.nl/search?hl=nl&q=define%3Aphoneme&lr=
> > and a long of definitions with links.
>
> > Enjoy!
>
> Thank you. None of the summaries says anything about
> phonemes that is contrary to my understanding of the
> subject. The main emphasis is on contrastive distribution.

Then perhaps you haven't understood them.

> None of the summaries suggests that a phoneme consisting of
> sounds in, say, the low, back region of the vowel
> quadrilateral could move to, say, the high, front region and
> still be considered the same phoneme.

Have you ever encountered a phonologist who claimed it could?

> Is there one of the links you referenced that discusses a
> phoneme *moving* from one region to another without changing
> its name?
>
> It's clear, of course, that a phoneme can contain sounds
> from different regions of the vowel quadrilateral if those
> sounds are perceived by a listener to be the same sound.
>
> I think I would always perceive a difference between [A] and
> [O], or between [&] and [E], so I find it hard to believe

You might, but an Arabic-speaker, for instance, wouldn't.

> that it's reasonable to think of the /A/ phoneme becoming an
> /O/ phoneme and still be called /A/.

Are you familiar with a language called Hebrew? The vowel whose symbol's
name is kamatz did exactly that.

> I pray that Peter T Daniels will not comment on this
> posting. I know that if he does, based on past experience,
> his comments will only be unresponsive and irritating.

Fuck you, Cunningham.

> By the way, I'm not interested in phoneme discussions
> relating to consonants. I'm only interested in using
> symbols to represent pronunciation. So far as I can
> remember, consonants have never been an issue in
> pronunciation discussions in alt.usage.english (AUE), while
> vowels have been discussed ad nauseam.

Since you insist on posting to sci.lang, you will be exposed to mentions
of other languages, willu nillu. You probably cannot hear the difference
between Arabic /k/ and /q/, and an Arabic-speaker will not be able to
understand how you can be so deaf. Just as you think the Arabic-speaker
must be deaf since he can't hear that [a] and [&] are different sounds.

Bob Cunningham

unread,
Nov 11, 2004, 1:29:26 AM11/11/04
to
On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 03:04:25 GMT, "Peter T. Daniels"
<gram...@worldnet.att.net> said:

> Bob Cunningham wrote:

[...]

> > I'm only interested in using symbols to represent
> > pronunciation. So far as I can remember, consonants
> > have never been an issue in pronunciation discussions
> > in alt.usage.english (AUE), while vowels have been
> > discussed ad nauseam.

> Since you insist on posting to sci.lang,

I most definitely do not insist on posting to sci.lang. I
have initiated a thread in sci.lang in the past ten years or
so only once that I can remember, although there may be a
few others that I've forgotten. The way I get entangled
with sci.lang is that I carelessly respond to a crossposted
message without noticing that it's crossposted. Then I'm
attacked by the insufferable Peter T Daniels and I feel that
I have to defend myself in the same newsgroup I was attacked
in. One message leads to another and before long I've been
sucked into a thread of dozens of messages.

So long as the despicable Peter T Daniels continues to
infest sci.lang, and so long as he ignores my repeated
requests that he not respond to any posting of mine, my
policy has to be to avoid posting to sci.lang. I've tried
to follow that policy, but -- as I've said -- sometimes I
inadvertently crosspost; then I'm in for it.

[...]

> Just as you think the Arabic-speaker must be deaf since he
> can't hear that [a] and [&] are different sounds.

Not at all. The sound [a] doesn't exist in my idiolect,
except in diphthongs, and I probably would not hear
dependably that [a] and [&] are different sounds. A
traditional Bostonian "park" sounds just like "pack" to me,
while I've been told that their nonrhotic "park" is [pak],
while their "pack" is [p&k].

Ruud Harmsen

unread,
Nov 11, 2004, 5:18:02 AM11/11/04
to
Thu, 11 Nov 2004 01:19:36 GMT: Bob Cunningham <exw...@earthlink.net>:
in sci.lang:

>He said, among other things
>
> One thing to remember is that [phonetic symbols] are
> supposed to not change their denotation, but
> /phonemic symbols/ can have different phonetic
> content over different dialects or over time.
>
>That seems contrary to the fact that two sounds represent
>the same phoneme if they will be perceived by a listener to
>be the same sound.

It is not contrary to that.

>Note carefully: I'm not asking sci.lang for an explanation.

Ok, so I won't give it to you. Saves time.

>> > About "/oh/ has moved", I later learned that, impossible as
>> > it seems to believe, linguists actually conceive of phonemes
>> > drifting from place to place in the vowel quadrilateral
>> > while retaining the symbols that stood for them in their
>> > original locations. How can that not lead to chaos?
>> > (Rhetorical question.)
>
>> This shows that he still doesn't have the slightest clue about the
>> meaning of "phoneme."
>

>It can't show that, [...]

To me it does.

Ruud Harmsen

unread,
Nov 11, 2004, 5:51:15 AM11/11/04
to
Thu, 11 Nov 2004 01:57:47 GMT: Bob Cunningham <exw...@earthlink.net>:
in sci.lang:

>Is there one of the links you referenced that discusses a


>phoneme *moving* from one region to another without changing
>its name?

Don't know about the links, I didn't follow them myself yet. And I
don't know exactly what you mean by 'moving' here. It seems the same
as the following:

>It's clear, of course, that a phoneme can contain sounds
>from different regions of the vowel quadrilateral if those
>sounds are perceived by a listener to be the same sound.

If you change that to "the same phoneme", I agree.
Regional pronunciations of the vowel in the Dutch word "boot" (same
meaning and same sound as English 'boat') differs a lot from region to
region. Rotterdam and Den Haag have something similar to RP English
(although not exactly the same), the North-East of the Netherlands has
practically the same sound as Scotland.
People hear that difference, they wouldn't say it's the same sound,
but if two people from those different areas talk and both say 'boot'
in their own way, they understand each other. So it's the same
phoneme.
Is that what you mean by a phoneme moving along the vowel
quadrilateral?

>By the way, I'm not interested in phoneme discussions
>relating to consonants. I'm only interested in using
>symbols to represent pronunciation.

I'd use very different symbols for representing the two pronunciations
I described above, but the same for representing that phoneme of
Dutch. For sounds I prefer IPA, but for phonemes, convenient symbols
have to be decided upon on a per-language basis. It is convenient to
use symbols others use too, and to use symbols that in IPA happen to
represent one of the commonest realisations of that phoneme. But that
isn't necessary.

>So far as I can
>remember, consonants have never been an issue in
>pronunciation discussions in alt.usage.english (AUE), while
>vowels have been discussed ad nauseam.

English consonants don't vary as much as its vowels. For Spanish, it's
the other way round. To each his own.

Greg Lee

unread,
Nov 11, 2004, 6:53:01 AM11/11/04
to
In sci.lang Bob Cunningham <exw...@earthlink.net> wrote:
...

> I think I would always perceive a difference between [A] and
> [O], or between [&] and [E], so I find it hard to believe
> that it's reasonable to think of the /A/ phoneme becoming an
> /O/ phoneme and still be called /A/.
...

Compare with this situation: I would ordinarily say [t&mp&nts]
for "tan pants", assimilating the "n" of "tan" in place of
articulation to the following "p" of "pants". Isn't it
reasonable to think that the phonemic form is /t&n p&nts/?
The first /n/ has become [m], which is identical with the
typical realization of a different phoneme, /m/. It doesn't
mean that I and others who do this can't perceive a difference
between /n/ and /m/. It just means /n/ is sometimes
pronounced [m].


--
Greg Lee <gr...@ling.lll.hawaii.edu>

Peter T. Daniels

unread,
Nov 11, 2004, 7:55:14 AM11/11/04
to
Bob Cunningham wrote:

> > Just as you think the Arabic-speaker must be deaf since he
> > can't hear that [a] and [&] are different sounds.
>
> Not at all. The sound [a] doesn't exist in my idiolect,
> except in diphthongs, and I probably would not hear
> dependably that [a] and [&] are different sounds. A
> traditional Bostonian "park" sounds just like "pack" to me,
> while I've been told that their nonrhotic "park" is [pak],
> while their "pack" is [p&k].

"bock" and "back," "mock" and "mack," "lock" and "lack," "rock" and
"rack" are synonyms?

Nothing to do with Boston or rhoticism.

Peter T. Daniels

unread,
Nov 11, 2004, 7:58:09 AM11/11/04
to

That's consonants. He isn't interested.

Peter T. Daniels

unread,
Nov 11, 2004, 7:57:28 AM11/11/04
to
Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>
> Thu, 11 Nov 2004 01:57:47 GMT: Bob Cunningham <exw...@earthlink.net>:
> in sci.lang:
>
> >Is there one of the links you referenced that discusses a
> >phoneme *moving* from one region to another without changing
> >its name?
>
> Don't know about the links, I didn't follow them myself yet. And I
> don't know exactly what you mean by 'moving' here. It seems the same
> as the following:
>
> >It's clear, of course, that a phoneme can contain sounds
> >from different regions of the vowel quadrilateral if those
> >sounds are perceived by a listener to be the same sound.
>
> If you change that to "the same phoneme", I agree.
> Regional pronunciations of the vowel in the Dutch word "boot" (same
> meaning and same sound as English 'boat') differs a lot from region to
> region. Rotterdam and Den Haag have something similar to RP English
> (although not exactly the same), the North-East of the Netherlands has
> practically the same sound as Scotland.
> People hear that difference, they wouldn't say it's the same sound,
> but if two people from those different areas talk and both say 'boot'
> in their own way, they understand each other. So it's the same
> phoneme.

Oops, data from outside English!

> Is that what you mean by a phoneme moving along the vowel
> quadrilateral?
>
> >By the way, I'm not interested in phoneme discussions
> >relating to consonants. I'm only interested in using
> >symbols to represent pronunciation.
>
> I'd use very different symbols for representing the two pronunciations
> I described above, but the same for representing that phoneme of
> Dutch. For sounds I prefer IPA, but for phonemes, convenient symbols
> have to be decided upon on a per-language basis. It is convenient to
> use symbols others use too, and to use symbols that in IPA happen to
> represent one of the commonest realisations of that phoneme. But that
> isn't necessary.

That's one of the more important concepts he hasn't grasped.

> >So far as I can
> >remember, consonants have never been an issue in
> >pronunciation discussions in alt.usage.english (AUE), while
> >vowels have been discussed ad nauseam.
>
> English consonants don't vary as much as its vowels. For Spanish, it's
> the other way round. To each his own.

Oops! Mention of another language!

Bob Cunningham

unread,
Nov 11, 2004, 12:19:50 PM11/11/04
to

Nothing to do with anything, that I can see. Those pairs
are of course not synonyms. If Daniels had said
"homophones", his question would make some sense. But
they're not homophones, either.

"bock" [bA:k], "back" [b&k]
"mock" [mA:k], "mack" [m&k]
"lock" [lA:k], "lack" [l&k]
"rock" [rA:k], "rack" [r&k]

Daniels may be confused because he's posting in a newsgroup,
alt.usage.english, where his strange symbols are not used.
In Kirshenbaum ASCII IPA [a] is a low, front, unrounded
vowel, equivalent to IPA lowercase "a"; [A] is a low, back,
unrounded vowel, equivalent to IPA script "a"; [&] is the
equivalent of IPA digraph "ae", a front, unrounded vowel
that is midway between open-mid and open. (See
http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/vowels.html .)

IPA [a] occurs in my idiolect only in diphthongs: [ai], my
sound in "kite"; and [au], my sound in "cow".

* About "rhoticism" and "rhoticity", see Message ID
<qe8tj0p8r5nv64ja1...@4ax.com>, or
http://tinyurl.com/5qf2a .

It is loading more messages.
0 new messages