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
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.
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?
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.
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).
Tom Hawkings,
I pronounce "mail" using a triphthong: [meI@l]
And yes, my pronunciation of "feel" has a scwha in it.
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.)
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.
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.
Is there a "schwa" sound in words like feel?
I'm lost here, can you give me some sort of instruction here?
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.
Which pronunciation drops the final 'l' in mail? Certainly not RP or GAE.
Certainly not. We can't have that! Besides, every accent has to be perfectly categorised and none of this hybrid stuff, a[w]right?