Re: some more Irish vowels


"Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Ekkehard Dengler wrote:
"Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Ekkehard Dengler wrote:
"Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Ekkehard Dengler wrote:
"Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Out of curiosity, I picked up an Ivor Novello album, and John
McCormick
sings (beautifully, of course) "Keep the Home Fires
Burning" --
but he
doesn't rhyme "yearning" with "burning"! "Burning" has myrrh,
as
expected, but "yearning" has Mary!

Many Irish people pronounce non-prevocalic "ir/yr" and "ur"
alike
while
keeping "er/ear" distinct. I don't think "yearning" has "Mary",
though;
I
would say it has the "dress" vowel (or "merry", if you like).
In the northwest (and possibly in other parts of the country),
non-prevocalic "ar" has a much closer vowel than "trap", so that
both
"hard"
and "heard" can sound like [hErd].

Again, because merry and Mary are perfectly distinct for me, I
have no
trouble identifying which is used in McC's "yearning."

Judging by http://www.aftermathww1.com/homefires.asp, you've simply
misidentified McCormack's "merry": [jE::rnIN] = /jErnIN/. If
anything,
the
first vowel in "yearning" is slightly lower than that in "glen".

Glen is merry.

McC's yearning is Mary.

No, you're mistaken -- and apparently reluctant to admit it. You've only
just found out that "burn" and "yearn" don't rhyme in one particular
Irish
accent and here you are defending your preconceived idea of the
speaker's
phonology. You clearly don't know what you're talking about. "Mary"
would
not have [E], and you can't have misheard lowish [E] as [e]. Listen to
that
recording again or try listening to an Irish radio station.

I am not mistaken; you are extremely confused.

I made the simple observation that in that recording of that song,
"yearning" does not rhyme with "burning" (which must have come as a
surprise to the lyricist), and "yearning" is sung with the Mary vowel.

The Mary vowel that is discussed ad infinitum in aue and slightly less
often here.

The exact meaning of "the 'Mary' vowel" obviously depends on which variety
of English you're talking about. The term refers to a lexical set, not to
particular realisations of a phoneme, the quality of the vowel varying of
course from accent to accent. The only problem is that you're unfamiliar
with typical realisations of the vowel in Irish English.

I said nothing about the quality of the vowel used in the word "Mary"
in early-20th-century Irish English. I have no way of knowing whether
McC used the same vowel in "Mary" and in "yearning." I only know that
on that day, McC used the Mary vowel in "yearning."

I know that that's what you claim, but you're wrong. McCormack did not use
the same vowel in "yearning" as he would have in "Mary". The "Mary" vowel
wouldn't have been realised as [E].

Regards,
Ekkehard


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: some more Irish vowels
    ... Ekkehard Dengler wrote: ... Again, because merry and Mary are perfectly distinct for me, I ... and "yearning" is sung with the Mary vowel. ... with typical realisations of the vowel in Irish English. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: some more Irish vowels
    ... Ekkehard Dengler wrote: ... McC's yearning is Mary. ... recording again or try listening to an Irish radio station. ... and "yearning" is sung with the Mary vowel. ...
    (sci.lang)
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