Vowels' Transcriptions

Levee   Tue Apr 15, 2008 9:07 pm GMT
"I also nned to know, as you give me the transcription, how can I apply them on words? In other words, what is the sounds of those transcriptions?"

Here are the X-SAMPA examples for "Classic" GA

/i/ as in "see" /si/
/I/ as in "it" /It/
/e/ as in "day" /de/
/E/ as in "net" /net/
/{/ as in "cat" /k{t/
/V/ as in "cut" /kVt/
/u/ as in "too" /tu/
/U/ as in "put" /pUt/
/o/ as in "go" /go/
/O/ as in "caught" /kOt/
/A/ as in "hot" /hAt/

/aI/ as in "fly" /flaI/
/aU/ as in "cow" /kaU/
/OI/ as in "boy" /bOI/

/Ir/ as in "here" /hIr/
/Er/ as in "very" /"vEri/, with most speakers "airy" /"Eri/ and now "carrot" /"kEr@t/
/{r/ as in "carrot" /"k{r@t/, some speakers "airy" /"{ri/
/3r/ as in "bird" /b3rd/, for many speakers "sure" /s3r/
/Ur/ as in "sure" /SUr/, "poor" /pUr/
/or/ (= for most speakers /Or/) as in "more" /mor/, "story" /"stori/, many speakers "poor" /por/
/Or/ (= for most speakers /or/) as in "nor" /nOr/, "forest" /"fOrIst/

The above two sounds are not distinguished by most people nowadays.

/Ar/ as in "car" /kAr/
Levee   Tue Apr 15, 2008 9:09 pm GMT
Sorry, it should be /nEt/
Levee   Tue Apr 15, 2008 9:13 pm GMT
I forgot about the unaccented vowels.
/@/ as in "visible" /"vIz@b@l/
/I/ as in "attick" /"{tIk/
/@`/ as in "butter" /"bVt@`/

The last can be written as /@r/.
Levee   Tue Apr 15, 2008 9:15 pm GMT
The vowels /Ir/ /Er/ /{r/ /3r/ /Ur/ /or/ /Or/ and /Ar/ can also be written /I@`/ /E@`/ /{@`/ /3`/ /U@`/ /o@`/ /O@`/ and /A@`/ respectively.
Travis   Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:49 pm GMT
>>That demo is really good. It shows that many Great Lakes speakers have /ɑ/ in caught.<<

In my own dialect, [ɒ] is preserved in COUGHT words, but in dialects to the south of Milwaukee it seems to rapidly be replaced by [ɑ]; my girlfriend, for instance, is from the South Side of Milwaukee (while I am from the West Side myself), and she herself frequently uses [ɑ] for COUGHT words, as does my mom, who is from Kenosha. Note, though, that such of course involves no phonemic merger, as said [ɑ] is still contrastive with [a] corresponding to the FATHER and BOTHER lexical sets (aside from apparent merger** of unraised /aʁ/ and the few cases of /ɒʁ/* in the dialect here by those who do not shift /ɒʁ/ to /oʁ/).

* /ɒʁ/ can be said to exist in a few words such as "already" and "alright" in the dialect here, even though the dialect here is horse-hoarse merged, due to elision of intervening consonants; however, this is relatively marginal and is often shifted by people here to either /oʁ/ or /aʁ/.

** some younger people here have adopted a pronunciation of unraised /aʁ/ as [ɒʁ] rather than [ɑʁ] here, which would count as a merger of sorts, albeit one in the opposite direction of [ɒ] > [ɑ]; this does not affect cases of /aʁ/ raised to [ʌʁ] by following fortis obstruents.
Trawicks   Fri Apr 18, 2008 3:36 pm GMT
"Travis: Wrong.
British /O:/ is usually MUCH closer than cardinal [O] ..."

No, it's not, for the most part, Again, though, it's important on this forum that we never use broad words like "British" or "American" English that describe large group of dialects.

In contemporary Estuary or near-RP English this vowel is most definitely /o:/ or something very close to /o:/, as you can see from this acoustic analysis of contemporary British English:

http://www.helsinki.fi/speechsciences/projects/vowelcharts/

You'll see that the position of the "caught" vowel is nearly identical to the /o/ phoneme in the various European languages charted below.

The chart is also interesting in that it shows that the /A:/ phoneme has nearly shifted to becoming a long variant of /V/ (or 6, as it should be authentically transcribed). So that "cart" is actually something more like /k6_-:t/.
Lazar   Fri Apr 18, 2008 4:27 pm GMT
<<No, it's not, for the most part, Again, though, it's important on this forum that we never use broad words like "British" or "American" English that describe large group of dialects.

In contemporary Estuary or near-RP English this vowel is most definitely /o:/ or something very close to /o:/, as you can see from this acoustic analysis of contemporary British English:>>

So you would be in agreement: you've just said that Estuary or near-RP English /O:/ is closer than cardinal [O:].
Levee   Sat Apr 19, 2008 11:40 am GMT
This: http://www.driveway.com/t4s1b0c4r8 is Cardinal [O:]. In my opinion, the conservative Cot-caught unmergered American THOUGHT vowel is typically only a little bit lower than this.
The British RP vowel is, on the other hand, usually between this and Cardinal [o:]: http://www.driveway.com/x0h4k7y2o1, and so it can sound like a "long o" sound to American ears.
Levee   Sat Apr 19, 2008 11:43 am GMT
The link for Cardinal [o:] should be without the comma at the end.
Guest   Sat Apr 19, 2008 2:56 pm GMT
Comma gets secure LOL
Sarah&#1613;   Sat Apr 26, 2008 5:07 pm GMT
Thank you all. I appreciate your comments.

Levee I study that:
/3/ as in "net" /n3t/
/ae/ as in cat /caet/

What do you think?

One more question I need to ask are:
1-How can I know the specific pronounciation, as non-native speaker, in order to transcribe them, for vowels, correctly?
2-What is the easist way to study phonetic transcription?


Regards...
Levee   Sat Apr 26, 2008 7:57 pm GMT
The vowel of "net" is not a "3" but an epsilon (a reversed "3"). But that's the IPA transcription, along with "ae". What I gave was the X-SAMPA transcription.