Re: -ire words

From: Jonathan Jordan (jonathan.jordan_at_sheffield.ac.uk)
Date: 07/19/04 

Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2004 13:06:14 +0100

"Aaron J. Dinkin" <dinkin@babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote in message
news:cdcc60$87d5$1@netnews.upenn.edu...
> On Sat, 17 Jul 2004 22:48:44 GMT, Peter T. Daniels
<grammatim@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
> > Aaron J. Dinkin wrote:
> >
> >> As I indicated elsewhere ("I have no desire to call the vowel in
"cut"
> >> schwa"), I'm not tying myself to Smith-Trager. I'd rather use a
> >> phonemicization that actually fits my dialect. (In particular,
having to
> >> use /@/ for [V] and /@r/ for [R] would make "burrow" and "burro"
> >> indistinguishable, and I for one can tell an ass from a hole in
the
> >> ground.)
> >
> > The words, however, are homophonous,
>
> Ain't so, so there.
>
> > as is "borough" as well (but not "borrow"),
>
> I have "borough" like "burrow", but not "burro".
>
> > unless of course you use a Hispanicizing "b/uw/rro."
>
> Nope. They're ['bVrow] and ['bRow].
>
> > If you don't recognize "cut" as a stressed shwa, then you are
> > multiplying entities -- there is no need for a /V/ ~ /@/ contrast.
>
> You and I have been through this before. If you have the
"hurry"/"furry"
> vowel merger it's your loss, but there's no need for you to impose
it on
> the rest of us.
>
> (I used "burrow"/"burro" for my example because they're both
> monomorphemic, and because I like the "ass from a hole in the
ground"
> joke; but I can't say for certain whether other people without the
> "hurry"/"furry" merger make this particular distinction in the same
way as
> I do. We were talking about my own personal phonemic system,
however, so
> nothing is lost by my choice of example.)

It doesn't work for me, partly because I don't really think of "burro"
as an English word, and I think it would have /U/ (Smith-Trager /u/)
if I did.

The /@/-/V/ minimal pairs I've come up with are "but"/"***" (even
when stressed, my "but" often still has [@] - it depends on the
context) and "Ms"/"muzz". I presume that Peter will insist either
that these are the same or that they're different in some other way,
but there we go.

Jonathan