[&] and [a] & lax and tense [was: Re: Claims [was: Re: Drifting phonemes [was: Re: The AmE 'o' sound]]]

From: Bob Cunningham (exw6sxq_at_earthlink.net)
Date: 11/14/04 

Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 01:25:24 GMT

On 12 Nov 2004 22:10:28 GMT, Greg Lee
<greg@ling.lll.hawaii.edu> said:

> In sci.lang Peter T. Daniels <grammatim@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> > Bob Cunningham wrote:

> > > The "father" vowel in ASCII IPA is [A], a low, back,
> > > unrounded vowel. [a] is a low, front, unrounded vowel. If
> > > Daniels doesn't want to use Kirshenbaum ASCII IPA, he should
> > > at least have the courtesy to learn how to read it when he's
> > > infesting AUE.
 
> > This is not correct. The low front unrounded vowel is transcribed with
> > the ae digraph, Kirshenbaum's [&]. [a] is the low central vowel.
 
> I don't know about the phonetic symbols, but I think Bob is
> referring to two different low front unrounded vowels (as he
> has said),

Not really. What I was referring to were two vowels only
one of which can be called, according to the IPA definition,
low front unrounded. If you'll look at the IPA Vowels chart
at http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/vowels.html , you'll see
that [a] (IPA 'a') is an open front unrounded vowel, while
[&] (IPA 'digraph ae') is front and unrounded but between
open and open-mid. A front unrounded open-mid vowel is [E].

> which I'd describe as lax in "park" versus tense
> in "pack". The latter is just the usual \ae digraph (which,
> however, Ladefoged and others describe as lax), and the former
> is the famous Boston "a". One sometimes sees in print the
> Boston "a" with an ordinary printed "a" letter, with something
> else used for central "a", to distinguish it.

Over the years I haven't been able to get consistent
definitions of "lax" and "tense". Different linguists seem
to have quite different understandings of what they mean.
One person, who seemed as if he should know, told me that
tense vowels were fully front or back and lax vowels were
slightly centralized from there. Others have given me quite
different definitions.
 
According to the first definition, [I] and [U] would be the
only lax vowels in the IPA Vowels chart. [&] and [a] would
both be tense. All of the other vowels that are neither
fully back nor fully front are central.

What do you mean by "lax" and "tense"?

Anyway, what Daniels says above is correct only in reference
to the definition of Kirshenbaum IPA at Evan Kirshenbaum's
Web site, which doesn't agree with the Vowels chart of the
International Phonetic Association. He's dead wrong in
reference to the definition of Kirshenbaum (?) IPA at the
AUE Web site, which does agree with the IPA Vowels chart.

The AUE Web site definition is at
http://www.alt-usage-english.org/ipa/ascii_ipa_combined.shtm
. Evan Kirshenbaum's definition is at
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/IPA/faq.html or, if you can
tolerate PDF (I can't), at
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/IPA/ascii-ipa.pdf . Evan used to
say somewhere that the PDF version should be considered his
primary specification. He probably still does.

The PDF and HTML files should be the same, but I suppose
it's possible he has updated the PDF version and not the
HTML. I don't have enough patience to endure the ordeal of
looking at the PDF version.

About "lax" and "tense", Peter Ladefoged, in his _A Course
in Linguistics Third Edition_, says vowels can be divided
into what may be called lax and tense sets. He goes on to
say

   These terms are really just labels that are used to
   designate two groups of vowels that behave
   differently in English words. There are phonetic
   differences between the two groups, but they are not
   simply a matter of tension.

He discusses pairs consisting of a tense vowel and a related
lax vowel, and he has a table showing the types of syllables
tense and lax vowels can appear in. He says

   In each of these pairs, the lax vowel is shorter,
   lower, and slightly more centralized than the
   corresponding tense vowel.

He lists the tense vowels as [i], [eI], [A], [O], [oU], [u],
[aI], [aU], [OI], and [ju]; and the lax vowels as [I], [E],
[&], [U], {V].

The {V} is shown with another symbol that may not have an
equivalent in ASCII IPA, a reverse epsilon with a righthand
hook. Pullum and Ladusaw show that symbol, but not as one
of the approved IPA symbols. They say the right hook is a
rhoticity diacritic, and they quote a secretary of the IPA
as saying "I think no one but Jones ever really liked these
symbols, and even he was not enthusiastic".

The IPA Diacritics chart,
http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/diacritics.html , does have
the right hook as a rhoticity diacritic. They illustrate it
with right-hook schwa.

Mario Pei, in his _Glossary of Linguistic Terminology_, has
two separate definitions of "lax":

   1. A vowel sound pronounced with lesser muscular
   tension in the speech organs ([I, [E], vs. [i], [e]).
   Opposite TENSE.

   2. A Sound produced with weaker breath pressure, less
   vigorous action of the lips or tongue (i.e., less
   muscular strain and deformity of the vocal tract), and
   correspondingly lesser concentration of energy in the
   spectrum and in time.

He appends the note "(de la Garza)" to the second
definition.

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