Phonetics: The concept of "breaking"

francisco zabala   Friday, March 04, 2005, 01:51 GMT
First of all, I'd like to thank everybody for answering my message.

Now, I have a couple of comments to make. Some people mentioned that they "don't have" a [@] glide before the liquid in the positions I mentioned at the top of the list. I think that having this glide is not "compulsory" but a tendency - in British English, at least. As far as I know, RP keeps as the primary choice the pronunciation /fI:l/ with a possible glide between the vowel and the liquid. Professor Wells mentions that some RP speakers may say /fi:@l/ or /fI@l/. My question would be the following:

- If the phoneme /i:/ may be [Ii] phonetically in RP and Estuary English, and if the speaker happens to vocalize the liquid, can the following phonetic transcriptions be at all possible?

a. /fi:l/ > [fIil] > [fIio] (with the possibility to elide the second element of the glide)

b. /fi:@l/ > [fIi@l] > [fIi@o] (with the possibility to elide the second element of the glide)

c. /fI@l/ > [fI@o] (with the possibility to elide the second element of the glide)

Thanks again,

franciscozabala@yahoo.com
Mxsmanic   Friday, March 04, 2005, 13:50 GMT
The utility of language resides in its standardization. While variants may be romantic, they do not facilitate communication. The only reason anyone can communicate with anyone else at all is that standards exist. Denying or rejecting them is irrational.
Tim   Friday, March 04, 2005, 15:19 GMT
But more importantly, the ultimate standard that facilitates true communication and understanding is the one of romance and love. Denying or rejecting it is to deny essentia.
Travis   Friday, March 04, 2005, 23:40 GMT
Mxsmanic, though, dialects outside of standard languages do perform significant social functions (whether you agree or not with them is another story), such as defining "in-group" and "out-group" relations, especially on a cultural level, defining levels of social formality or lack thereof, and so on. As well, even though something may be deemed as "standard", much of the population may not actually speak such, and said standard may be rather stilted or overly formal for general use for many. Something being called "standard" does not mean that most of the population actually uses it as such in an everyday fashion, and hence one cannot assume that using a "standard" will necessarily facilitate better communication, besides with individuals who don't natively speak said language, and may have not learned the details of actual usage and grammar in any given dialect.
Kirk   Saturday, March 05, 2005, 01:22 GMT
Mxsmanic, I agree with Travis...besides the fact that all that a language is is a bundle of related and inherently equal dialects (altho sociologically some may be more prestigious) that have all developed for valid historical reasons, trying to impose a "standard" especially upon spoken language is largely an exercise in futility. "Variants" (of what? your preferred way of speaking?) are all that language is, and contrary to common myth, there is no sterile innately better form of a language--writing off other varieties as lesser is demeaning to those who speak them and doesn't reflect the reality of language use. Besides, I don't understand how what this topic is about, the details of vocalizing [l], could seriously inhibit communication on any consistent basis.