Re: This week on Dancing with the Stars Re: The Business Memoir - the ``whom'' question


Ekkehard Dengler wrote:
"Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1161863896.274411.246850@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Ruud Harmsen wrote:
25 Oct 2006 13:52:33 -0700: "Peter T. Daniels"
<grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxx>: in sci.lang:

Which, in my phonetics classes and everywhere else, is the low front
vowel -- [E] being mid front and [a] being low central.

Except in IPA 2005, as I pointed out, where [a] is low front. Where is
"everywhere else"? I know a place where it is: my pages about
Portuguese. Not really the norm, I should think.

Nonetheless, Ruud referred to [a] being fronter than [&],

Where did I say that? If I did, it was my mistake.

which it
isn't under either description (the geometric or the featural).

What I did write is:
[a] isn't much fronter than [&].
in reaction to your:
The ONLY point at hand is the fronter vs. the backer low vowel.

That was a mistake, I should have written:
[&] isn't much fronter than [a].

Right -- because the vowel quadrilateral (i.e. the space in the oral
cavity for the tongue to move around in) is smaller at the bottom than
at the top. [&] is sufficiently more front than [a] that they can
easily be distinguished [...]

According to the IPA, the difference between the two is in the degree of
openness.

Maybe that's its definiens, but for me the more salient feature is its
degree of frontness. [&] is the "marry" vowel, not the "Mary" vowel --
most English-speakers don't make that distinction. "Mary" is saliently
higher than "marry" (and "merry" is higher still, with Helen Mirren and
Dennis [or Timothy] Leary occupying the highest rungs of front vowels).
(Mirror has [I] not [i].)

.

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