Re: How many vowel lengths are there

From: Peter T. Daniels (grammatim_at_worldnet.att.net)
Date: 09/15/04 

Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 13:04:22 GMT

M. Ranjit Mathews wrote:
>
> Ruud Harmsen <realemailseesite01@rudhar.com> wrote in message news:<4k7dk0d6ipfrers7t0id66v2l2g8gi8kc1@4ax.com>...
> > 13 Sep 2004 23:40:53 -0700: ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com (M. Ranjit
> > Mathews): in sci.lang:
> >
> > >A Hungarian who lived in France for a time said that he wouldn't spell
> > >the French name Thoma with a long o. I was surprised by this because
> > >in Malayalam, Thoma is spelt with a long o and the French
> > >pronunciation sounds to me quite close to the Malayalam [t[OmA] spelt
> > >with 2 long vowels <O> and <A>.
> > >
> > >How many vowel lengths are there in common use, according to
> > >phoneticians?
> >
> > Inifinitely many, to a phonetician.
>
> How do they describe their length to other phoneticians? In multiples
> of time taken to utter an English schwa or some such unit of
> measurement?

Milliseconds, usually. 

-- 
Peter T. Daniels                       grammatim@att.net