Shawalphabet YahooGroup Archive Browser

On 3/26/06, paul vandenbrink <pvandenbrink11@...> wrote:
> Hi Hugh & Phil
> I am assuming that the "Ah" sound in British English is noticeably
> shorter in length than the "Awe" sound and maybe not quite so
> noticably but still a bit longer than the "On" sound.
> Is that right?

No -- "ah" and "awe" are both long sounds, at least for me, and are
pretty much the same length. "On" is noticeably shorter. "Ah" and
"awe" differ in quality, not in length. "Awe" is rounded while "ah"
isn't; I'm not sure what other differences exist.

> Also to me the "Awe" sound sounds closer to the "Ah" sound.
> This is consistent with the Letter Shapes.
> Perhaps, to British speaker, "Awe" sounds closer to the "On" sound?

The sound of "awe" seems closer to "on" than to "ah" to me, probably
because both are rounded. But "awe" is not a longer version of "on".

Hm, looking at the IPA chart and relying on my memory, I think British
"awe" is an open-mid back rounded vowel (X-SAMPA [O:]), the rounded
version of "up" (open-mid back unrounded vowel, X-SAMPA [V]). British
"ah" is an open back unrounded vowel (X-SAMPA [A:]), the unrounded
version of "on" (open back rounded vowel, X-SAMPA [Q]).

Trying them out seems to confirm this: "up" and "awe" have roughly the
same tongue position and differ mostly in lip rounding and vowel
length (up is short and unrounded, awe is long and rounded); and "ah"
and "on" again have roughly the same tongue position and differ mostly
in lip rounding and vowel length (ah is long and unrounded, on is
short and rounded).

Apparently, many varieties of America have the father-bother merger
("ah" and "on" merge), the cot-caught merger ("on" and "awe" merge) or
both (all three merge into one), so that may make it difficult to hear
the differences. I'm not sure what the target of the mergers is, but I
think it may be [A] -- the British "ah" sound. So an American saying
"law" might sound as if he were saying "la" to a British person.

I don't know about your particular variety, especially since many
places only contrast General American and Received Pronunciation, not
any other variety spoken in the United States or Canada.

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>

> > It's interesting to see which mergers we take for granted but which
> > some speakers don't have -- for example, I had heard that some people
> > distinguish "horse" from "hoarse",
>
> To repeat myself, "some people" included Bernard Shaw and George V.
>
> repetitiously,
> dshep

I'm not sure that the majority of speakers on either side of the Atlantic
nowadays do observe a difference.

Hugh B

I believe I distinguish "horse" from "hoarse" although it is subtle.
The latter seems to have a hint of a schwa sound after the initial vowel
to me.

Also, I am curious. If one has merged the sound "awe" out of one's
idiolect, what does one say for the word "awe"? Ah? the "on" sound by
itself. So one would say, for example: "When the angels appeared, the
shepherds were filled with ah." Does anyone really say this? If I
heard someone say this, I doubt I would understand their meaning.

Paige

P.S. do those who have merged "cot" and "caught" think that "nautical"
refers to the "knots" that sailors have to know how to tie?

Hugh Birkenhead wrote:

>>>It's interesting to see which mergers we take for granted but which
>>>some speakers don't have -- for example, I had heard that some people
>>>distinguish "horse" from "hoarse",
>>>
>>>
>>To repeat myself, "some people" included Bernard Shaw and George V.
>>
>>repetitiously,
>>dshep
>>
>>
>
>I'm not sure that the majority of speakers on either side of the Atlantic
>nowadays do observe a difference.
>
>Hugh B
>
>
>
>
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Hi Paige
Where would the name Horace, fit inbetween Horse and Hoarse?
Just curious.
In Shavian, I would spell Horace as "hPas" which has a definate schwa
sound (Ado) after the initial vowel sound "or".
Regards, Paul V.
________________attached_____________________________
--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, Paige Gabhart <pgabhart@...> wrote:
>
> I believe I distinguish "horse" from "hoarse" although it is subtle.
> The latter seems to have a hint of a schwa sound after the initial
vowel to me.

On 3/27/06, Paige Gabhart <pgabhart@...> wrote:
> P.S. do those who have merged "cot" and "caught" think that "nautical"
> refers to the "knots" that sailors have to know how to tie?

Good question. Searching for "knottical" brought up only one hit that
appeared likely to be unintentional - for "knottical miles", which
makes a kind of sense given that confusion with "knot" = "nautical
mile per hour" is likely.

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>

On 3/27/06, paul vandenbrink <pvandenbrink11@...> wrote:
> Hi Paige
> Where would the name Horace, fit inbetween Horse and Hoarse?
> Just curious.
> In Shavian, I would spell Horace as "hPas" which has a definate schwa
> sound (Ado) after the initial vowel sound "or".

I'd spell it "horas".

It's one of those things where different speakers assign the -r- to
different syllables, I guess -- just as I'd spell, say, "mirD" but
"nCD", while others would spell both the same ("mCD, nCD"). I think
this is also the effect responsible for the fact that I separate
"merry" (meri) and "Mary" (mXi), again mostly on the basis of which
syllable I feel the -r- belongs in.

I also feel a slight different in the vowel, though -- "mirror" and
"merry" sound more like "mirD, meri" while "nearer" and "Mary" sound
more like "niarD, meari" with an extra shwa after the "main" vowel.

If you feel a shwa after the main vowel of "Horace", it appears to me
that you put the -r- in the first syllable, unlike me who puts it in
the second. (I'm not sure whether this is connected with rhotic
dialects in general; that is, whether they are more likely to put
-r-'s into the first of two possible syllables.)

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com,
--- Philip Newton wrote:
>
> Fellow friends of the Shaw alphabet,
>
> I recently came across two essays that I would like to
> recommend to you:
>
> - Daniel Jones,
> "Dhe Fonetik Aspekt ov Speling Reform /
> The Phonetic Aspect of Spelling Reform",
> http://www.spellingsociety.org/journals/pamflets/p8fonetik.php
>
> - J.C.Wells,
> "English accents and their implications for spelling reform"
> http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/accents_spellingreform.htm

... ... ... ...

> Cheers,
> --
> Philip Newton

Thank you for finding these for us. Fascinating. J. C. Wells,
if I'm not mistaken, is originally from New Zealand which may
perhaps give him a slightly different view of the vagaries of
vowel differentiation amongst the rest of us.

thanks again,
dshep

(those of you not in the mood for trivia should skip this entry to the
annals of the ShawGroup)

a reply of sorts to message 1603 from paul vandenbrink, who wrote:

> menI v HOz Aristokrats hAd t mMv t /kAnadu AftD H /AmXikAn
> wP v indapendens, wic krIEtad H fxst rIlIa signifakAnt /iNgliS
> spIkiN pypVlESun

> pI. es. H wxd Aristokrats haz a vXI negativ konatESun in /AmXika.

I suppose it might. One's attitude towards the Aristos depends very much
upon whether one can claim to be one oneself (or would like to be),
or not.
If not then the usual course generally is to ignore them; they'll do
the same
for you.

Some years ago I had a chance meeting with a descendant of what once
was America's home-grown aristocratic class, not known (at least now) as
aristocrats but FFVs -- First Families of Virginia. This was and is
the small
group of land-owners in the eastern, or Tidewater part of Virginia, that
provided the fledgling United States with much of its initial
leadership:
Washington, Madison, and all the rest of that most distinguished circle.
Thomas Jefferson's ideas about democracy may have originated in part
because of his uneasiness with belonging to such a select group, a group
that patterned its actions (or so they thought) after that of the old
Roman
senatorial families who justified their wealth and rank by providing
responsible leadership. In some this duty was taken seriously and the
young United States benefitted from their efforts.

I am boring you with this history lesson as a prelude to describing some
of the salient points about the speech-pattern, or accent, of this
modern
representative of a respected social group which is the most
extraordinary,
and perhaps interesting, of any I have ever come across. Remember, this
was the first prestige accent of America. To begin with the easy
part, he
used a broad-a in the past/master group of words as indeed most of the
Atlantic Seaboard did in colonial days, but not the same as in modern
English, rather a short long-a, very brief, and the special
pronunciation
of 'about' that we have been discussing, not really 'aboot' but
something
along those lines, again very brief (after quizzing my Nova Scotian
friend
it may even be closer to 'aboat'). But the real sensation I thought
was the
presence of consonant clusters that to my knowledge occur nowhere else
in English, and are best revealed in the pronunciation of the family
name,
Carter, pronounced kyahtuh.

This encounter took place during a tour of the family home, conducted by
the proprietor himself, something owners of large estates are sometimes
required by necessity to do. This was a plantation, but hardly in the
"Gone
With the Wind" image. There were no white columns, no Greek neo-
classicism;
instead a Georgian brick box of modest but handsome proportions and
careful
detail, inhabited by the same family since colonial days. One parked
one's
rental cyah at a respectful distance and then was given a tour of the
hyus and
gyahden. The word 'house' being given the same vocal twist as
'about'. Robert
E. Lee, a person of some renown in American history, was born in a
corner of
one of the main rooms, his crib still on display.

A little research indicated this was at one time the finest accent
one could have
in the early days of the Republic, the speech of its most famous
founders after
all, but not one that went uncontested, especially by the merchant
class of New
England. The rivalry between commerce and property, a rivalry of
different
interests conducted in competing accents, was to continue until the
election of
that rough-talking, brusque, semi-educated man of the frontier,
Andrew Jackson.
America has not been the same since.

I imagine it to be difficult to persist with such a distinct manner
of speech even if
still of high local esteem, considering all the pressures one must
meet, especially
when young, and I wonder if it has survived in later generations. The
proprietor's
wife was Danish with her own, slight accent, one made famous by Meryl
Streep in
the film "Out of Africa", so, you never know.

Oh, and yes, I too discovered that fully a third of the colonial
population of the
United States, condemned as loyalists by their fellow countrymen, are
believed by
historians to have emigrated willingly or unwillingly, by choice or
not, to Canada
after independence. Perhaps they brought aboot/aboat with them.

Well, I warned you this would be trivia so blame yourself if you've
read this far
and have received no enlightement about anything of consequence. Such
are
the fruits of a lazy Sunday afternoon.

dshep

reply to message 1604 from paul vandenbrink, who wrote:


> In reference to your first question about meaning, I wanted to
> know how you pronounced "baa" You used it as reference
> word, but how could I guess exactly how you pronounced it?
> Baa, I need plain common examples.

I did not write 'baa'; I wrote 'bah', to rhyme with 'AH, LA, etceterAH'.

> Obviously, you are hearing distinctions, not noted in America.

Does that void their validity?

> However, when we are writing our English phonemically, we
> have to go with what we hear. All other suggestions would only
> be temporary in any case given the evolution/ devolution in the
> pronunciation of English. I don't speak like George Washington
> anymore and it would be foolhardy to speak according to some
> old style, that is unfamilar to the majority of English speakers,
> just because some groups have preconceived (out-of-date)
> notions of the proper pronunciation for me.

I don't think that was what I was advocating.

> So lets look to the future. The idea of phonemes is that if there
> is no minimal pair, you lump that sound under one symbol. So
> let's look for minimal pairs.

Or/ore, for/four, horse/hoarse are minimal pairs.

> And if there few or only a single minimal pair (i.e. Argh) lets just
> note it as an exception and move on.

Bar, car, dart, far, heart, jar, lark, mark, part, shard, start,
tart, etc.

> I think that is the same case with R-sounds. If we have a system
> that covers all but a handfull of exceptions, why not go ahead with
> it rather than grumbling that it is broken and going back to
inherently
> imprecise Roman style Diagraphs.

I'm not sure what you mean by Roman-style digraphs, but phonemes in
themselves are imprecise, that is the basis of their utility.


> P.P.P.S. The combination of the "u" sound with the r-sound produces
> something very close to the ar (AD) sound in Argh, not "err"

How can it do that? u + r = urge/err/purr/spurt/dirt/word, not argh.


Imprecisely,
dshep

reply to message 1607 from paul vandenbrink, who pointed out:

... ... ... ...

> As for the 3 New York accents.

... ... ... ...

> the different types of native New York accents are all ethnic,"
>"You have the Jewish accent, ... the Italian accent -- Robert De Niro
> or Tony Danza. There's the Irish New York accent, like Rosie
> O'Donnell or Mayor Giuliani."

Now that you mention it I have heard each of those. I am especially
fond of
the (Bronx?) accent that pronounces 'ever' as 'evUH', with a stong
emphasis
on the second syllable. Barbara Streisand?

> I don't think hardly anyone will change their Accent in order to
learn
> to write Shavian better?

That shouldn't be necessary.


> P.S. I don't notice any particular rounding in the "oo" sound in
> words like good, book, look, shook, took or pull. In Canada, we seem
>to be lax about Vowel rounding. Any other opinions?

But this is a round vowel; it is not an opinion. Every mention in any
book on the
subject agrees.

dshep