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Re: Pronunciations you had to unlearn
Posted: Sat Jul 09, 2022 1:12 am
by anteallach
Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed Jul 06, 2022 7:18 pm
Richard W wrote: ↑Wed Jul 06, 2022 6:57 pm
Linguoboy wrote: ↑Wed Jul 06, 2022 4:58 pm
[citation desperately needed]
All the sources I have to hand (
OED,
AHD, Wiktionary, etc.) give /ˈeːt/ as the chief pronunciation for all varieties of English and list /ˈɛt/ as--at best--an alternative in some. Maybe it's "standard" only for UK nonagenarians?
The Old English preterite is <æt>, which can yield /et/, but not /eɪt/. Onions'
Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology says, "The sp.
ate of the pt. depends on early ME
at, which repr. a short var. of OE
ǣt; the pronunc. et is usu. assoc with the sp.
ate, but is perh. a shortening of pt.
ēt." The pronunciation of the preterite is given as "et, eɪt".
The fact of the matter though is despite what one can dig up about etymology, /eɪt/ (whether you pronounce it with an actual diphthong or with a mid or close-mid monophthong, and regardless of whether you actually pronounce it long or not) is the standard pronunciation of
ate in all English varieties today.
I'd say that both are standard in current BrE. I have /ɛt/.
Re: Pronunciations you had to unlearn
Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2022 7:38 pm
by WarpedWartWars
Croatia as [kɹo.ti.ʌ]. Apparently it's actually [kɹo.e.ʃʌ].
Re: Pronunciations you had to unlearn
Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2022 8:21 am
by Linguoboy
WarpedWartWars wrote: ↑Mon Jul 11, 2022 7:38 pm
Croatia as [kɹo.ti.ʌ]. Apparently it's actually [kɹo.e.ʃʌ].
Why is stress omitted from your transcription?
Re: Pronunciations you had to unlearn
Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2022 10:38 am
by Travis B.
Linguoboy wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 8:21 am
WarpedWartWars wrote: ↑Mon Jul 11, 2022 7:38 pm
Croatia as [kɹo.ti.ʌ]. Apparently it's actually [kɹo.e.ʃʌ].
Why is stress omitted from your transcription?
I also wonder whether WarpedWartWars
really has true [ʌ] for /ə/ or rather that they have fallen victim to the misconception that [ə] is "[ʌ]". (As a note for WarpedWartWars, unless you have the NCVS you probably don't have [ʌ] as a phone, and then only in stressed syllables.)
Re: Pronunciations you had to unlearn
Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2022 11:55 am
by Travis B.
WarpedWartWars wrote: ↑Mon Jul 11, 2022 7:38 pm
Croatia as [kɹo.ti.ʌ]. Apparently it's actually [kɹo.e.ʃʌ].
Also note that you should properly mark aspiration when transcribing English - e.g. I will hear initial [k] or [k] at the start of a stressed syllable not preceded by a vowel as /g/ rather than /k/ because the contrast between /g/ and /k/ in those positions is an aspiration contrast* for me and many other English-speakers rather than a voicing contrast.
* There is a reason Pinyin uses <p t k> to mark aspirated consonants and <b d g> to mark unaspirated consonants.
Re: Pronunciations you had to unlearn
Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2022 12:59 pm
by Linguoboy
Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 10:38 am
Linguoboy wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 8:21 am
WarpedWartWars wrote: ↑Mon Jul 11, 2022 7:38 pm
Croatia as [kɹo.ti.ʌ]. Apparently it's actually [kɹo.e.ʃʌ].
Why is stress omitted from your transcription?
I also wonder whether WarpedWartWars
really has true [ʌ] for /ə/ or rather that they have fallen victim to the misconception that [ə] is "[ʌ]". (As a note for WarpedWartWars, unless you have the NCVS you probably don't have [ʌ] as a phone, and then only in stressed syllables.)
I think it's pretty clear that, despite the brackets, this is not actually a narrow
phonetic transcription but a broad phonemic one. That's why I was focussing on a phonemic feature (stress) rather than getting bogged down in nitpicking each and every one of the phonetic symbols (since it was the lack of stress indication which caused me to misread the transcription).
For reference, WWW, the
Wiktionary transcription is /ˌkɹoʊˈeɪ.ʃə/, which the forward slashes marks as phonemic but which I would actually consider broadly phonetic (since it indicates such subphonemic details as diphthongisation and the nature of the /r/).
Re: Pronunciations you had to unlearn
Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2022 1:18 pm
by Travis B.
Linguoboy wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 12:59 pm
I think it's pretty clear that, despite the brackets, this is not actually a narrow
phonetic transcription but a broad phonemic one.
On second thought, I agree.
Linguoboy wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 12:59 pm
For reference, WWW, the
Wiktionary transcription is /ˌkɹoʊˈeɪ.ʃə/, which the forward slashes marks as phonemic but which I would actually consider broadly phonetic (since it indicates such subphonemic details as diphthongisation and the nature of the /r/).
I also agree that the "/ɹ/" used is phonetic detail, because the conventional phonemic representation is /r/ (particularly as there are English-speakers such as myself which don't have [ɹ] as a phone, so "/ɹ/" would be misleading).
About "/oʊ/" and "/eɪ/", to me those are just conventional transcriptions, particularly motivated by the convention by many British writers to use "/e/" to refer to /ɛ/, and hence the need to contrast such with "/eɪ/" (and if one is going to mark that as a diphthong, one might as well also mark "/oʊ/" as one too to match it).
Personally, I would phonemically mark
Croatia as I speak it as /ˌkroʊˈeɪʃə/, as /oʊ/ and /eɪ/ are conventional, even though the phonetic reality of it is [ˌkʰʁˤo̞ːˈwe̞ʃə(ː)] for me.
Re: Pronunciations you had to unlearn
Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2022 1:25 pm
by Linguoboy
Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 1:18 pmPersonally, I would phonemically mark
Croatia as I speak it as /ˌkroʊˈeɪʃə/, as /oʊ/ are /eɪ/ conventional, even though the phonetic reality of it is [ˌkʰʁˤo̞ːˈwe̞ʃə(ː)] for me.
Yeah, this is why I prefer monophthongal transcriptions, i.e. /oː/ and /eː/. (I know there are dialects which are not
pain-pane or
toe-tow merged, but they're very rare and marginal; if I ever need to transcribe an elderly speaker from the Rhondda Valley or something, I'll introduce the distinction.)
Re: Pronunciations you had to unlearn
Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2022 1:35 pm
by Travis B.
Linguoboy wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 1:25 pm
Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 1:18 pmPersonally, I would phonemically mark
Croatia as I speak it as /ˌkroʊˈeɪʃə/, as /oʊ/ are /eɪ/ conventional, even though the phonetic reality of it is [ˌkʰʁˤo̞ːˈwe̞ʃə(ː)] for me.
Yeah, this is why I prefer monophthongal transcriptions, i.e. /oː/ and /eː/. (I know there are dialects which are not
pain-pane or
toe-tow merged, but they're very rare and marginal; if I ever need to transcribe an elderly speaker from the Rhondda Valley or something, I'll introduce the distinction.)
To me much of phonemic transcription is convention. E.g. to me there is no real difference between /oː eː/ and /oʊ eɪ/. If I were to use a phonemic transcription that had NAE varieties alone in mind, I'd go further and mark those as /o e/, as historical phonemic vowel length has been largely lost in NAE. However, as there do exist good portions of English for which vowel length is not predictable from vowel quality and there are some varieties which have vowels that phonemically contrast on vowel length alone, such as AusE, it is best to still indicate either length or diphthongization in transcriptions when describing words in English in general.
Re: Pronunciations you had to unlearn
Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2022 2:36 pm
by Linguoboy
Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 1:35 pmTo me much of phonemic transcription is convention. E.g. to me there is no real difference between /oː eː/ and /oʊ eɪ/. If I were to use a phonemic transcription that had NAE varieties alone in mind, I'd go further and mark those as /o e/, as historical phonemic vowel length has been largely lost in NAE.
I used to be pretty militant about using Trager-Smith notation for my NAE variety but eventually I got tired of blockheads who couldn't wrap their heads around the possibility that phonemic transcriptions which used characters for something besides their God-given IPA values were equally valid and useful and gave up.
On topic, I think I used to rhyme
Croat with
groat before I knew better.
Re: Pronunciations you had to unlearn
Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2022 3:10 pm
by Travis B.
Linguoboy wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 2:36 pm
Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 1:35 pmTo me much of phonemic transcription is convention. E.g. to me there is no real difference between /oː eː/ and /oʊ eɪ/. If I were to use a phonemic transcription that had NAE varieties alone in mind, I'd go further and mark those as /o e/, as historical phonemic vowel length has been largely lost in NAE.
I used to be pretty militant about using Trager-Smith notation for my NAE variety but eventually I got tired of blockheads who couldn't wrap their heads around the possibility that phonemic transcriptions which used characters for something besides their God-given IPA values were equally valid and useful and gave up.
I for a while a long time ago insisted on using my own idiosyncratic phonemic transcription for my NAE variety out of excessive snowflakiness, until I realized that I just confused everyone and no one could then compare my pronunciations with those in other English varieties, where then I switched quite consciously to a purely conventional IPA transcription that pretty much fit the standard sort used by most North Americans. (However, I insist on not marking vowels as rhotic but rather use a separate following /r/ because to me that is excessively narrow and because an analysis with a separate /r/ works better in certain corner cases in my variety.)
Linguoboy wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 2:36 pm
On topic, I think I used to rhyme
Croat with
groat before I knew better.
For quite some time I was unsure as to the pronunciation, since I primarily read the word.
Re: Pronunciations you had to unlearn
Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2022 1:53 am
by WarpedWartWars
Linguoboy wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 8:21 am
Why is stress omitted from your transcription?
Because
Linguoboy wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 12:59 pm
I think it's pretty clear that, despite the brackets, this is not actually a narrow
phonetic transcription but a broad phonemic one.
and I saw no reason to indicate stress, but here it is anyway: /ˈkro.ti.ə/ [ˈkɹo.ti.ʌ] and /kroˈe.ʃə/ [kʰɹoˈ(w)e̞(j).ʃʌ].
Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 10:38 am
I also wonder whether WarpedWartWars
really has true [ʌ] for /ə/ or rather that they have fallen victim to the misconception that [ə] is "[ʌ]". (As a note for WarpedWartWars, unless you have the NCVS you probably don't have [ʌ] as a phone, and then only in stressed syllables.)
I have three schwas: [ɪ], [ə] or [ʊ] (I can't really tell the difference easily), and [ʌ]. All are phonemically /ə/, though.
Re: Pronunciations you had to unlearn
Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2022 7:15 am
by Moose-tache
Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 10:38 am
I also wonder whether WarpedWartWars
really has true [ʌ] for /ə/ or rather that they have fallen victim to the misconception that [ə] is "[ʌ]". (As a note for WarpedWartWars, unless you have the NCVS you probably don't have [ʌ] as a phone, and then only in stressed syllables.)
Yet another victim of the /ə/ fallacy. If I had a nickel for every time I heard this one.
There is no /ə/. The STRUT vowel, in every significant variety of NAE, is [ʌ]. People have convinced themselves that this is what schwa sounds like, but use your brain for two seconds. Schwa is an allophonic realization of unstressed vowels in NAE. You can run a simple experiment. Pronounce words like "codable, Thibodeaux, bandages," as quickly as you would in normal speech. Notice that reduced vowel in the middle syllable? Now carefully pronounce the word "nut." Is it the same vowel? No, obviously not. Because nobody says "beuhckle euhp before you drive the treuhck." Generations have been brainwashed into believing that the STRUT vowel is schwa, but it just demonstrably isn't. Schwa isn't even a separate phoneme in most varieties of NAE.
Climate change is real. STRUT is not a schwa. Get over it.
Re: Pronunciations you had to unlearn
Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2022 7:19 am
by Moose-tache
This is backwards. [ə] occurs as an unstressed allophone of a number of different vowels, while /ʌ/ is contrastive against all other stressed vowels. You say [bʌt] when speaking carefully, and only say [bət] when speaking quickly and the word has attached to a larger prosodic unit that drags the stress elsewhere. Also, [bʌt] has one origin and is maximally contrastive (i.e. it can't be confused with "bait," "bot," etc.), while [bət] could be the reduced version of almost anything, as in "Talbot" or "gibbet."
Re: Pronunciations you had to unlearn
Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2022 10:50 am
by Travis B.
Moose-tache wrote: ↑Sat Jul 16, 2022 7:15 am
Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 10:38 am
I also wonder whether WarpedWartWars
really has true [ʌ] for /ə/ or rather that they have fallen victim to the misconception that [ə] is "[ʌ]". (As a note for WarpedWartWars, unless you have the NCVS you probably don't have [ʌ] as a phone, and then only in stressed syllables.)
Yet another victim of the /ə/ fallacy. If I had a nickel for every time I heard this one.
There is no /ə/. The STRUT vowel, in every significant variety of NAE, is [ʌ]. People have convinced themselves that this is what schwa sounds like, but use your brain for two seconds. Schwa is an allophonic realization of unstressed vowels in NAE. You can run a simple experiment. Pronounce words like "codable, Thibodeaux, bandages," as quickly as you would in normal speech. Notice that reduced vowel in the middle syllable? Now carefully pronounce the word "nut." Is it the same vowel? No, obviously not. Because nobody says "beuhckle euhp before you drive the treuhck." Generations have been brainwashed into believing that the STRUT vowel is schwa, but it just demonstrably isn't. Schwa isn't even a separate phoneme in most varieties of NAE.
Climate change is real. STRUT is not a schwa. Get over it.
Well there is a phonemic /ə/ but it only exists only in unstressed syllables (e.g. in commA) and it emphatically is not STRUT, which is not a schwa.
Re: Pronunciations you had to unlearn
Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2022 1:37 am
by Ares Land
Oh, today I learned Epstein is pronounced /ˈɛpstiːn/ but Einstein is /ˈaɪnstaɪn/.
Re: Pronunciations you had to unlearn
Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2022 8:41 am
by Linguoboy
Ares Land wrote: ↑Sun Jul 17, 2022 1:37 am
Oh, today I learned Epstein is pronounced /ˈɛpstiːn/ but Einstein is /ˈaɪnstaɪn/.
These names are a mess in English. Take Fierstein, which according to German spelling conventions would be /fiːrstain/ but which Harvey Fierstein pronounces /fairstiːn/.
In general, German gentile names have /ai/ and Ashkenazic Jewish names have /iː/, but there are plenty of exceptions.
Re: Pronunciations you had to unlearn
Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2022 1:42 pm
by Travis B.
Linguoboy wrote: ↑Sun Jul 17, 2022 8:41 am
Ares Land wrote: ↑Sun Jul 17, 2022 1:37 am
Oh, today I learned Epstein is pronounced /ˈɛpstiːn/ but Einstein is /ˈaɪnstaɪn/.
These names are a mess in English. Take Fierstein, which according to German spelling conventions would be /fiːrstain/ but which Harvey Fierstein pronounces /fairstiːn/.
In general, German gentile names have /ai/ and Ashkenazic Jewish names have /iː/, but there are plenty of exceptions.
The traditional pronunciation of <ei> in German names here is /ai/~/əi/ but as Linguoboy says there are many exceptions, especially in Ashkenazi names (note that Albert Einstein himself was an Ashkenazi Jew).
Re: Pronunciations you had to unlearn
Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2022 12:25 am
by WarpedWartWars
Moose-tache wrote: ↑Sat Jul 16, 2022 7:19 am
This is backwards. [ə] occurs as an unstressed allophone of a number of different vowels, while /ʌ/ is contrastive against all other stressed vowels. You say [bʌt] when speaking carefully, and only say [bət] when speaking quickly and the word has attached to a larger prosodic unit that drags the stress elsewhere. Also, [bʌt] has one origin and is maximally contrastive (i.e. it can't be confused with "bait," "bot," etc.), while [bət] could be the reduced version of almost anything, as in "Talbot" or "gibbet."
The first ways I think of for pronouncing "Talbot" and "gibbet" are [ˈtʰæɫ.b(ə)ʔ] and [ˈgɪ.bɪʔ]. BTW what does "Talbot" refer to here?
Re: Pronunciations you had to unlearn
Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2022 8:47 am
by Raphael
Travis B. wrote: ↑Sun Jul 17, 2022 1:42 pm
The traditional pronunciation of <ei> in German names here is /ai/~/əi/ but as Linguoboy says there are many exceptions, especially in Ashkenazi names (note that Albert Einstein himself was an Ashkenazi Jew).
Keep in mind that Einstein only migrated to the US in his fifties, unlike people with similar names who had been born and raised there.