Hi Steve
Sorry, I misunderstood your suggestion, and just jumped to the conclusion
that it matched exactly with my proposal based on syllable boundaries.
I tend to believe that is better to go with minimalist approach of writing
an indeterminate sound as unstressed unless there is compelling evidence to
the contrary. I also try and use the Schwa (ado) whenever the vowel sound
is so unstressed/lax/indistinct that the written vowel is short and hard to
determine. Including the unstressed i, except maybe before "ng".
I don't think "her" is a example because, I notice different levels of
stress in the er sound based on the words 2 grammatical functions.
For example when "her" is used as sort of adjective, the er-sound seems
very unstressed. For example in the sentence,
I bought her cat.
But when "her" is used as a pronoun, the er-sound seems more stressed. For
example in the sentence.
"I brought her a cat"
Your proposal on the use of er and err has the merit of reducing
confusion. We definitely need a rule since the variations, are all adding a
lot of confusion.
I find stress especially which syllables are accented, to be very variable,
and generally influenced by the different regional accents.
Occasionally the accent will vary according meanings of the same word. For
example, the word "preserves".
In "He preserves old cars." the accent is on the first syllable.
In "Home preserves are tasty." the accent is not easily determined.
In any case, we have a rule.
Regards, Paul Vandenbrink
At 12:21 AM 6/19/02 +0000, you wrote:
>Paul,
>
>That /3/ [urge] be used only in closed syllables was your proposal.
>I said that unless it was a multisyllable word, there was no
>difference between 3 and @ [urge and array]. h3 = h@, h3r = h@r,
>3rj = @rj, ....
>
>The key difference between these two phonemes is stress. A one
>syllable word has no relative stress as such. One could argue that
>there is a cadence to English speech and that function words tend to
>be unstressed but that is another story.
>
>One can propose an orthographic rule of the form that you have
>suggested. Thus while h3r = h@r, we could simply make a choice in
>order to achieve some regularity in spelling.
>
>So the proposal is that h3r/h@r be spelled h3r. That is, hXr
>instead of har [hX instead of hD].
>
>The concept of a closed syllable may be a little hard in practice
>because many people have trouble defining the syllable boundaries.
>
>I find that stress is easier to spot. ago = @go = agO not because a-
>is an open syllable but because a- is unstressed. urgent is 3rjent
>or 3rj@nt because ur is stressed. [Xrjant]. Do I have this right,
>I mix up x and X?
>
>Many people pronounce vary as very and Marry as merry.
>The [a] refers to A [SAMPA {, IPA ae] and the difference between A
>and e is not that great.
>
>TO vary very
>SS varry verry
>TO marry merry
>S m{ri meri where i is indeterminant [unstressed i]
>IPA maeri meri
>
>We can't exactly standardize pronunciation but we can recognize two
>broadcast standards, BBC-English and NBC-English. Shavian tends to
>use a BBC short-o [on] rather than the NBC [odd as aad] and the NBC
>rhotic pronunciation [suffer instead of suffa].
>
>Pronunciation was very important to Shaw who served on the committee
>that set the BBC pronunciation standard.
>
>
>Steve
>
>--- Paul Vandenbrink <pvandenbrink@s...> wrote:
>
> > I realize that a standard pronunciation is un realistic.
> > However, I would like to reduce the number of variations in
> > spelling to 2 or 3. Most people don't know how to
> > differentiate between ah and aw or array and urge.
>
> > I like Steve suggestion that unless there is sound evidence to the
> > contrary, that array be used for the er sound in open syllables
> > and the urge be used for the er sound in closed syllables.
>
>
>
>
>
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