English questions

[Ryusenshi]

For a surprising number of low vowels, you can also look at some varieties of African-American Vernacular English.

• [æ] for TRAP (though it tends to be quite high, nearly [ɛ])
• a monophthong or near-monophthong [äː] for PRICE
• [ɑ̈] for LOT
• [ɑː ~ ɑə] for non-rhotic START

[bradrn]

Ahh thank yall for answering the questions i had. I was gonna comment sooner, but this computer has a chair about as comfortable as a bicycle seat. Was curious what the fundamental difference between the vowels i brought up was, and i got it answered. Insane there's THREE low vowels in British English (TRAP, LOT, and PALM). What i meant by the TRAP vowel disappearing was it being more and more aligned with PALM, but that's clearly a misconception on my part.

Then you’ll love to know that AuE has no less than foce low vowels, because it also has a low-ish vowel for STRUT, as well as minimal pairs between short /æ/ and long /æ:/, both corresponding to TRAP in other Englishes. START is also low, but merged with PALM. Though on the other hand, I hesitate to call LOT ‘low’ — it seems a little higher than the others to me. (I think this is the case for British dialects, too… I recall an excellent article on this, but can’t find it again.)

[anteallach]

Ahh thank yall for answering the questions i had. I was gonna comment sooner, but this computer has a chair about as comfortable as a bicycle seat. Was curious what the fundamental difference between the vowels i brought up was, and i got it answered. Insane there's THREE low vowels in British English (TRAP, LOT, and PALM). What i meant by the TRAP vowel disappearing was it being more and more aligned with PALM, but that's clearly a misconception on my part.

Then you’ll love to know that AuE has no less than foce low vowels, because it also has a low-ish vowel for STRUT, as well as minimal pairs between short /æ/ and long /æ:/, both corresponding to TRAP in other Englishes. START is also low, but merged with PALM. Though on the other hand, I hesitate to call LOT ‘low’ — it seems a little higher than the others to me. (I think this is the case for British dialects, too… I recall an excellent article on this, but can’t find it again.)

I think my LOT indeed isn't really low; it's more [ɔ] than [ɒ]. One of Geoff Lindsey's posts has some recordings discussing this and with some old ones demonstrating a more open vowel: https://www.englishspeechservices.com/b ... treatment/

(Though those German clips don't really sound like THOUGHT to me. I think my THOUGHT is a bit lower than in the type of accent he's describing.)

Hmm, so i guess it's roughly two A-type vowels differing in forms of length. Is that a fair assessment?

I think so, though for most EngE speakers START/PALM is further back than TRAP, and for some it would be better thought of as paired with a different short vowel (STRUT, as in AusE, in parts of the South East, and maybe also LOT in some areas). Note that BrE tends to anglicise [a] type vowels in loanwords with TRAP if we think the vowel is short and with PALM if we think it is long. (Note "we think": we don't always get this right...)

[bradrn]

https://www.englishspeechservices.com/b ... treatment/

Wait, this looks like the blog with the article I was looking for! Thank you!

EDIT: And incidentally, while I’m looking at the site, I found an excellent revision/explication of the IPA vowel system: https://www.englishspeechservices.com/b ... wel-space/

[Ryusenshi]

Oh nice, Geoff Lindsey has lots of recent material! I used to read his blog quite frequently. In fact, I use his system as my main pronunciation model.

After seeing this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtnlGH0 ... offLindsey
... I'm wondering if I should change the symbols I use in my own texts. Should I start using /aj, ij, uw/ for PRICE, FLEECE, GOOSE? Lindsey argues, quite convincingly, that these symbols make more sense than the traditional /aɪ, iː, uː/ for English phonology, and that they're less misleading for foreign learners. On the other hand, most of the teaching resources available here use the traditional symbols...

[Travis B.]

Oh nice, Geoff Lindsey has lots of recent material! I used to read his blog quite frequently. In fact, I use his system as my main pronunciation model.

After seeing this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtnlGH0 ... offLindsey
... I'm wondering if I should change the symbols I use in my own texts. Should I start using /aj, ij, uw/ for PRICE, FLEECE, GOOSE? Lindsey argues, quite convincingly, that these symbols make more sense than the traditional /aɪ, iː, uː/ for English phonology, and that they're less misleading for foreign learners. On the other hand, most of the teaching resources available here use the traditional symbols...

In my own case there is no reason to adopt /ij uw/ for FLEECE or GOOSE because they are normally monophthongs (except sometimes when GOOSE is preceded but not followed by a coronal, and that's a central-to-back diphthong rather than a closing one) and my lect has no kind of underlying length distinction in vowels (as vowel length is a function of stress and adjacent consonants, not the vowels themselves). As for PRICE, /aj/ to me implies a high ending point whereas my ending point for /aɪ/ is relatively open, being in the vicinity of [e], and my PRICE does not have any specifically long vowel phonemes to pattern with.

[bradrn]

Oh nice, Geoff Lindsey has lots of recent material! I used to read his blog quite frequently. In fact, I use his system as my main pronunciation model.

After seeing this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtnlGH0 ... offLindsey
... I'm wondering if I should change the symbols I use in my own texts. Should I start using /aj, ij, uw/ for PRICE, FLEECE, GOOSE? Lindsey argues, quite convincingly, that these symbols make more sense than the traditional /aɪ, iː, uː/ for English phonology, and that they're less misleading for foreign learners. On the other hand, most of the teaching resources available here use the traditional symbols...

I have [ɑɪ], [i], [ʉ] for those. Lindsey’s transcriptions for the latter two sound very British to me — not that there’s anything wrong with that in phonemic transcription, it just doesn’t reflect my own speech.

[Travis B.]

Oh nice, Geoff Lindsey has lots of recent material! I used to read his blog quite frequently. In fact, I use his system as my main pronunciation model.

After seeing this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtnlGH0 ... offLindsey
... I'm wondering if I should change the symbols I use in my own texts. Should I start using /aj, ij, uw/ for PRICE, FLEECE, GOOSE? Lindsey argues, quite convincingly, that these symbols make more sense than the traditional /aɪ, iː, uː/ for English phonology, and that they're less misleading for foreign learners. On the other hand, most of the teaching resources available here use the traditional symbols...

I have [ɑɪ], [i], [ʉ] for those. Lindsey’s transcriptions for the latter two sound very British to me — not that there’s anything wrong with that in phonemic transcription, it just doesn’t reflect my own speech.

I agree - insisting on /ij/ and /uw/ in particular seems almost parochially British to me, as for pretty much all the Americans whose speech I've paid attention to those are both monophthongs or, as I mentioned, a central-to-back diphthong in the latter case.

[anteallach]

Oh nice, Geoff Lindsey has lots of recent material! I used to read his blog quite frequently. In fact, I use his system as my main pronunciation model.

After seeing this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtnlGH0 ... offLindsey
... I'm wondering if I should change the symbols I use in my own texts. Should I start using /aj, ij, uw/ for PRICE, FLEECE, GOOSE? Lindsey argues, quite convincingly, that these symbols make more sense than the traditional /aɪ, iː, uː/ for English phonology, and that they're less misleading for foreign learners. On the other hand, most of the teaching resources available here use the traditional symbols...

I have [ɑɪ], [i], [ʉ] for those. Lindsey’s transcriptions for the latter two sound very British to me — not that there’s anything wrong with that in phonemic transcription, it just doesn’t reflect my own speech.

I agree - insisting on /ij/ and /uw/ in particular seems almost parochially British to me, as for pretty much all the Americans whose speech I've paid attention to those are both monophthongs or, as I mentioned, a central-to-back diphthong in the latter case.

And yet the transcriptions /iy/ (where /y/ is just an Americanist equivalent to IPA /j/) and /uw/ have a long history of being used in North America, in particular being part of the system used by Bill Labov (which is basically the Trager-Smith system).

[Travis B.]

And yet the transcriptions /iy/ (where /y/ is just an Americanist equivalent to IPA /j/) and /uw/ have a long history of being used in North America, in particular being part of the system used by Bill Labov (which is basically the Trager-Smith system).

I've seen Labov's system before, and I'm not exactly fond of it, as it seems to attempt to over-abstract English vowel phonemes. If I were king and I had my way I'd transcribe GA as having /æ ɛ e ɪ i ɐ ɑ ɔ o ʊ u/ for full monophthongs (/e o/ may be diphthongs, but are not consistently so), /aɪ aʊ ɔɪ/ for diphthongs, /ɛr ɪr ɜr ɑr ɔr ʊr/ for full rhotic vowels (assuming the Mary-merry-marry merger and the Sirius-serious merger), /ə ɨ/ for reduced vowels, and /ər/ for reduced rhotic vowels. Many GA-like dialects also have the phoneme /əɪ/ that is weakly contrastive with /aɪ/. and/or merge /ə ɨ/ into a single reduced vowel. But that's me. Of course, one might decide that one likes /ai au oi/ (and /əi/) better than /aɪ aʊ ɔɪ/ (and /əɪ/).

[Linguoboy]

I've seen Labov's system before, and I'm not exactly fond of it, as it seems to attempt to over-abstract English vowel phonemes.

That's exactly what I've always liked about it. I'm attracted to Pulleyblank's analysis of Modern Standard Chinese for the same reason.

[Travis B.]

I've seen Labov's system before, and I'm not exactly fond of it, as it seems to attempt to over-abstract English vowel phonemes.

That's exactly what I've always liked about it. I'm attracted to Pulleyblank's analysis of Modern Standard Chinese for the same reason.

To me my problem is how it separates out /e i o u/ from /ey iy ow uw/ when to me the only real difference in an NAE context between the two sets is the latter can exist before vowels (but may have glides inserted before the following vowels) while the former can't.

[bradrn]

And yet the transcriptions /iy/ (where /y/ is just an Americanist equivalent to IPA /j/) and /uw/ have a long history of being used in North America, in particular being part of the system used by Bill Labov (which is basically the Trager-Smith system).

I've seen Labov's system before, and I'm not exactly fond of it, as it seems to attempt to over-abstract English vowel phonemes. If I were king and I had my way I'd transcribe GA as having /æ ɛ e ɪ i ɐ ɑ ɔ o ʊ u/ for full monophthongs (/e o/ may be diphthongs, but are not consistently so), /aɪ aʊ ɔɪ/ for diphthongs, /ɛr ɪr ɜr ɑr ɔr ʊr/ for full rhotic vowels (assuming the Mary-merry-marry merger and the Sirius-serious merger), /ə ɨ/ for reduced vowels, and /ər/ for reduced rhotic vowels. Many GA-like dialects also have the phoneme /əɪ/ that is weakly contrastive with /aɪ/. and/or merge /ə ɨ/ into a single reduced vowel. But that's me. Of course, one might decide that one likes /ai au oi/ (and /əi/) better than /aɪ aʊ ɔɪ/ (and /əɪ/).

Why all of /æ ɛ e/?

[Travis B.]

And yet the transcriptions /iy/ (where /y/ is just an Americanist equivalent to IPA /j/) and /uw/ have a long history of being used in North America, in particular being part of the system used by Bill Labov (which is basically the Trager-Smith system).

I've seen Labov's system before, and I'm not exactly fond of it, as it seems to attempt to over-abstract English vowel phonemes. If I were king and I had my way I'd transcribe GA as having /æ ɛ e ɪ i ɐ ɑ ɔ o ʊ u/ for full monophthongs (/e o/ may be diphthongs, but are not consistently so), /aɪ aʊ ɔɪ/ for diphthongs, /ɛr ɪr ɜr ɑr ɔr ʊr/ for full rhotic vowels (assuming the Mary-merry-marry merger and the Sirius-serious merger), /ə ɨ/ for reduced vowels, and /ər/ for reduced rhotic vowels. Many GA-like dialects also have the phoneme /əɪ/ that is weakly contrastive with /aɪ/. and/or merge /ə ɨ/ into a single reduced vowel. But that's me. Of course, one might decide that one likes /ai au oi/ (and /əi/) better than /aɪ aʊ ɔɪ/ (and /əɪ/).

Why all of /æ ɛ e/?

TRAP, DRESS, FACE. Note that one could mark FACE as /eɪ/, and GOAT as /oʊ/, but that really is a matter of taste. In NAE FACE really only has to have a mid front starting point, and may be a monophthong or diphthong, hence why I marked it as /e/.

[bradrn]

I've seen Labov's system before, and I'm not exactly fond of it, as it seems to attempt to over-abstract English vowel phonemes. If I were king and I had my way I'd transcribe GA as having /æ ɛ e ɪ i ɐ ɑ ɔ o ʊ u/ for full monophthongs (/e o/ may be diphthongs, but are not consistently so), /aɪ aʊ ɔɪ/ for diphthongs, /ɛr ɪr ɜr ɑr ɔr ʊr/ for full rhotic vowels (assuming the Mary-merry-marry merger and the Sirius-serious merger), /ə ɨ/ for reduced vowels, and /ər/ for reduced rhotic vowels. Many GA-like dialects also have the phoneme /əɪ/ that is weakly contrastive with /aɪ/. and/or merge /ə ɨ/ into a single reduced vowel. But that's me. Of course, one might decide that one likes /ai au oi/ (and /əi/) better than /aɪ aʊ ɔɪ/ (and /əɪ/).

Why all of /æ ɛ e/?

TRAP, DRESS, FACE. Note that one could mark FACE as /eɪ/, and GOAT as /oʊ/, but that really is a matter of taste. In NAE FACE really only has to have a mid front starting point, and may be a monophthong or diphthong, hence why I marked it as /e/.

Ah, I see. My FACE is a distinct diphthong, [ɛɪ].

[Travis B.]

Why all of /æ ɛ e/?

TRAP, DRESS, FACE. Note that one could mark FACE as /eɪ/, and GOAT as /oʊ/, but that really is a matter of taste. In NAE FACE really only has to have a mid front starting point, and may be a monophthong or diphthong, hence why I marked it as /e/.

Ah, I see. My FACE is a distinct diphthong, [ɛɪ].

I've heard many Australians even have [æɪ] for it. This is why when doing transcriptions which are specifically crossdialectal and which do not pertain to NAE alone I tend towards /eɪ/ and /oʊ/, even though for NAE alone I'd mark them as /e/ and /o/.

[bradrn]

TRAP, DRESS, FACE. Note that one could mark FACE as /eɪ/, and GOAT as /oʊ/, but that really is a matter of taste. In NAE FACE really only has to have a mid front starting point, and may be a monophthong or diphthong, hence why I marked it as /e/.

Ah, I see. My FACE is a distinct diphthong, [ɛɪ].

I've heard many Australians even have [æɪ] for it. This is why when doing transcriptions which are specifically crossdialectal and which do not pertain to NAE alone I tend towards /eɪ/ and /oʊ/, even though for NAE alone I'd mark them as /e/ and /o/.

Yes, [æɪ] is also a definite possibility for me.

[Moose-tache]

The sterotype is that Audtralian FACE and GOAT are fully PRICE and HOUSE vowels. For some speakers, it does seem that their FACE and GOAT match my GA PRICE and HOUSE, with the actual PRICE and HOUSE distinguished by other means (e.g. backing in the case of PRICE)

Tim Minchin, pronouncing words:
FACE faɪs
PRICE pɹɑʕwɑʕwʕ[+choking]ɪs

[bradrn]

The sterotype is that Audtralian FACE and GOAT are fully PRICE and HOUSE vowels. For some speakers, it does seem that their FACE and GOAT match my GA PRICE and HOUSE, with the actual PRICE and HOUSE distinguished by other means (e.g. backing in the case of PRICE)

Well, I suppose that isn’t entirely false, insofar as non-Australian PRICE is often something like [aɪ]. But these days Australian (and British) PRICE is more like [ɑɪ].

[Rounin Ryuuji]

The sterotype is that Audtralian FACE and GOAT are fully PRICE and HOUSE vowels. For some speakers, it does seem that their FACE and GOAT match my GA PRICE and HOUSE, with the actual PRICE and HOUSE distinguished by other means (e.g. backing in the case of PRICE)

Well, I suppose that isn’t entirely false, insofar as non-Australian PRICE is often something like [aɪ]. But these days Australian (and British) PRICE is more like [ɑɪ].

British /æ/ is also often further back than NA /æ/, which often breaks to [eə], which then gets hypercorrected back to [æ] in words like "Graham" and "mayonnaise".