Re: non-phonetic english spelling
From: Greg Lee (greg_at_ling.lll.hawaii.edu)
Date: 12/28/04
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Date: 28 Dec 2004 02:20:20 GMT
John A Rea <j.rea2@insightbb.com> wrote:
> Greg Lee wrote:
> > John A Rea <j.rea2@insightbb.com> wrote:
> > ...
> >
> >>In phonology, this term and its symbol are often called "the (note
> >>the definite article) reduced vowel.
> >
> >
> > That definite article can have a phonetic interpretation: schwa
> > is that unique vowel which is unrounded, not front, not back,
> ^^^^^^^^^
> Yet descriptions of French phonetics and French phonology
> usually describe the vowel they call "mute e" or "schwa"
> as being rounded. But on this one had best check with
> native speakers of "French"
Yes. I don't doubt that it's rounded. I was just expressing
a prescriptivist longing for a phonetic understanding of a
phonetic symbol. If one were to reserve "schwa" for the
phonetically neutral vowel, a rounded vowel would not be
called schwa, and the world would be a better place.
I guess that the impulse to call a low front rounded vowel
in Canadian French "schwa" is the same as what makes some
transcribe the caret of "cut" as schwa. When an American
English speaker tries to pronounce schwa in isolation, since
he stresses it, what comes out is caret. This association
between schwa and the caret vowel is an idiosyncracy of the
Am. English phonological system, though. In a transcription
which is supposed to be phonetic, it's a contaminant.
...
-- Greg Lee <greg@ling.lll.hawaii.edu>
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