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During the last year, I've been trying to learn about the concept of "breaking" that Prof. Wells uses in his dictionary of pronunciation. I've emailed him but still I feel that there is much more to learn about this phenomenon.
According to Wells, a glide sound schwa may develop before /l/ or /r/ when the liquids follow a vowel. He mentions that pre-l breaking takes place in British English after /i:, eI, aI/ and /@I/. In words such as "feel" pronunciations such as /fi:l/ /fI@/ or /fI@l/ may be heard. My question is: If /l/ is replaced by /U/ or /o/, should we say that this process takes place as well, thus "feel" may become /fI@U/, where /@/ may be elided?
I'm looking forward to hearing from you,
franciscozabala@yahoo.com
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I pronounce ''feel'' as /fI@l/ (the third pronunciation that you've listed).
''feel'' being pronounced as /fI@U/ would not be possible in English, because that would contain a triphthong and you can't have triphthongs in English because it violates the rules of English phonology.
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Triphthongs are allowed in some nonrhotic accents, some of which also vocalize velarized, or "dark" [l], so the question isn't unreasonable. I don't know a whole lot about the details of [l] vocalization and am not regularly exposed to those accents, but my guess would be that the glide [@] that occurs before velar [l] as in "feel" only co-occurs with the velarized [l] in articulatory accommodation of it, and when [l] is removed, so is the glide [@]. So, in dialects that vocalize [l], my guess would be there'd be no glide [@], but something like [fIo] or [fIU]. Maybe someone else here knows more about the subject?
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francisco,
There is no schwa in feel, In the IPA it would be spelled as fi:l with the colon (:) to indicate that the vowel is lengthened. Do not ry to "over-schwa" your words.
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I almost always pronounce feel with a schwa. The schwa in feel is part
of the ell and is extremely brief. So no, francisco, there would not be a schwa if there wasn't an ell at the end of the word (or some other
letter whose pronunciation involves a schwa).
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Tom Hawkings,
I pronounce "mail" using a triphthong: [meI@l]
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And yes, my pronunciation of "feel" has a scwha in it.
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You should not confuse a schwa followed by a consonant with a syllabic consonant. In most cases, where you are referring to a "schwa", you really mean that the consonant is syllabic. For example, I pronounce the word "oil" as [oI=l] (but, however, I pronounce "feel" as [fil], and pronounce "mail" as either [mel] or [me=l], depending on whether I enunciate "mail" normally or slowly). As an example of what [=l] is, it is the sound in most cases where words in English end in -"le" (even though many may inaccurately transcribe such as [@l] rather than [=l]). (Note that in this post I have been using SAMPA as the transcription scheme.)
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It's rare for me to pronounce a distinct schwa in words like feel, unless it is for emphasis in a slow pronunciation. Usually there is just the first vowel, or the terminal /l/ is syllabic.
The situation is different between rhotic and non-rhotic speakers for a final 'r', since rhotic speakers explicitly pronounce this consonant whereas non-rhotic speakers fail to do so. The latter will routinely replace it with a central vowel.
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Travis,
There's no confusion. Often the [l] is completely dropped in "mail" resulting in [meI@]. The @ isn't a syllabic consonant but a simple vowel resembling [U]. I've never heard it pronounced [mel] with a monophthong.
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Is there a "schwa" sound in words like feel?
I'm lost here, can you give me some sort of instruction here?
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It's just that I have a tendency to use the monophthongs [e] and [o] where many'd use the diphthongs [eI] and [oU], for the phonemes /e/ and /o/. Why? Don't ask me.
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Which pronunciation drops the final 'l' in mail? Certainly not RP or GAE.
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Certainly not. We can't have that! Besides, every accent has to be perfectly categorised and none of this hybrid stuff, a[w]right?
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