Re: some more Irish vowels


"Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote...

Ekkehard Dengler wrote:
"Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote...
>
> Ekkehard Dengler wrote:

> > The exact meaning of "the 'Mary' vowel" obviously depends on > > which
variety
> > of English you're talking about.
>
> No, in the context of these newsgroups (not that I crossposted to > aue),
> Mary is a label for a certain quality of vowel, for which there may > or
> may not be a "cardinal number" or an "IPA transcription" (for which > I
> have asked many, many times, and no one has ever provided one).

The following excerpt from the AUE FAQ does provide an IPA transcription of
sorts. It also implies that "Mary" couldn't sensibly be used to describe a
particular vowel quality, the reason being that the pronunciation of the
name varies considerably between accents:

"Where there are two columns, the left column shows British Received
Pronunciation (RP), and the right column shows a rhotic pronunciation used
by at least some U.S. speakers.

(...)

[E] = [<epsilon>] as in:
'end' /End/ /End/
'get' /gEt/ /gEt/
'Mary' /'mE@rI/ /mE@ri/
'merry' /'mErI/ /'mEri/

Some U.S. speakers do not distinguish between 'Mary',
'merry', and 'marry'."

If "Mary" stood for a particular vowel quality rather than for (a vowel
phoneme in) a set of words, the last sentence would be nonsensical.

Perhaps that table was designed by Bob Cunningham or Ruud Haarmsen, as
it indicates phonemes but perhaps intends a phonetic transcription.

They certainly look like they're meant to be phonemes to me! How would you phonemise these words, using the symbols common among most British linguists (where /E@/ denotes a single phoneme, the SQUARE vowel)?

Phonetically, Mary is most certainly not merry with a centralizing
glide.

Phonetically, it certainly is, in my dialect. Likewise in RP, and, as far as I know, other non-rhotic southern Brit. I assume you're not referring to these, though, but to your own variety, which, you seem to be implying, is "standard" in the sense that anyone who doesn't know what you mean can't speak English.

In an attempt to work out what you're getting at, I just consulted Wells "Accents of English". Yes, I know from experience that he doesn't always get things right, but it's the best I've got.

Quote: ""In the New York City area SQUARE words usually have /E@/, a distinct phoneme. But GenAm has no such phoneme. For the GenAm minority who distinguish <Mary> from both <merry> and <marry>, <Mary> must be must be regarded phonologically as as /meIri/, with the FACE vowel, whatever its realization (usually [e] or [e@] )."

Is this right? If not, is it wrong/incomplete/just plain sloppy?

John.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Speaking without a foreign accent
    ... >pronunciations of English worldwide. ... Vowel length ceased to be phonemic ... fundamental weakness of the phoneme paradigm, ... Minimal pairs exist, but are rare. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: The Business Memoir - the ``whom question
    ... is the marry vowel. ... I am NOT talking about the Mary phoneme, ... Nasalization is not phonemic in English; ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: BBC does it again
    ... your model to the Englishes of speakers who have a diphthong there. ... My English has two "long E's". ... Two changes, actually, depending on whether the r was followed by a vowel, or by a consonant. ... In the first, it became, like I said or, and when the "r" ceased to be pronounced centuries later in non-rhotic dialects, the changed vowel became phonemic -- a classical case of phoneme split. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: "Im coffee and hes espresso." -- facially nonsensical
    ... > But care, bear, and halve all have the same vowel, ... and regard /ey/ and /eh/ as the same phoneme. ... your own peculiar dialect of English in general terms that make it sound ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Why does this vowel change its length?
    ... focus on the claim about english in mxsmanic's posting. ... of no variety of english in which vowel length (alone, ... english as a second language might reasonably choose to disregard them ...
    (sci.lang)
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