What is Mary-marry-merry merger?

Eat   Wed Feb 11, 2009 3:00 am GMT
>> Would "eat it", pronounced with the first vowel very short and the second very long still be perceived as "eat it" and not as "it eat" ? <<

Perhaps a super short "eat" could be perceived as "it" sometimes. But even a super-long "it" would *never* be perceived as "eat". So what you described would sound like "eat it" or sometimes as "it it", but never as "it eat". I think that [I]/[i] (it/eat) and [U]/[u] (pull/pool) are the only possible exceptions. And only making the tense version super-short. Drawing out the "a" in "cat" will still sound like "cat". Drawing out the "e" in "end" will still sound like "end".
Swede   Sat Feb 14, 2009 1:16 pm GMT
Eat   Sat Feb 14, 2009 3:43 pm GMT
>> What about this? <<

It is completely inaccurate. When they say "long" vowel they really mean tense vowel. When they say "Short" vowel means lax vowel. When I mentioned vowel length, I was talking about the duration of the vowel--how long you pronounce it, rather than which vowel it is. The biggest difference between the "i" in "dip" and the "ee" in "deep" is mostly determined by the frequency of the formants which is determined by the position of the tongue. For "ee", the tongue is positioned higher in the mouth and the tip of the tongue is further forward than for "i". The "ee" in "deep" is longer than the "i" in "dip", but that, in my opinion doesn't matter very much. You could hold the "i" in "dip" twice or even three times as long, and it would *never* sound like "deep". In fact, it would actually sound more like "dib". One of the biggest differences between "dip" and "dib" (or "kit" and "kid" or "pick" and "pig"), is that the vowel is longer for the second one of the pair.

So in other words, "i" and "ee" are completely different vowels in English, in the same way as "moan" and "moon" have different vowels in them. And the difference has little to do with how long you hold the vowel.
Uriel   Sat Feb 14, 2009 9:56 pm GMT
A long I would be the I in kite, as opposed to the I in kit. Keep, eat, and other words like that have long E sounds, not long I sounds.
Swede   Sun Feb 15, 2009 1:09 pm GMT
<<When they say "long" vowel they really mean tense vowel. When they say "Short" vowel means lax vowel. When I mentioned vowel length, I was talking about the duration of the vowel--how long you pronounce it, rather than which vowel it is. The biggest difference between the "i" in "dip" and the "ee" in "deep" is mostly determined by the frequency of the formants which is determined by the position of the tongue.>>

But she does pronounce the long vowels longer time. So if the the vowels differ in both duration and quality, how can one measure which is the most important difference?


<<A long I would be the I in kite>>
I call that a diphthong. ([kaɪt])

<<Keep, eat, and other words like that have long E sounds, not long I sounds.>>
If [iː] is called "long E", then what should [eː] be called?
Eat   Sun Feb 15, 2009 3:45 pm GMT
>> But she does pronounce the long vowels longer time. So if the the vowels differ in both duration and quality, how can one measure which is the most important difference? <<

Well I would have to say quality. I would never get [i] and [I] confused, unless you said [i] *super* short, and then *maybe* I would think you were trying to say [I]. However simply lengthening [I] (dip), would never sound like "deep" no matter how much you lengthened it.

>> <<Keep, eat, and other words like that have long E sounds, not long I sounds.>>
If [iː] is called "long E", then what should [eː] be called? <<

This is how native English speakers learn to read. Remember our spelling hasn't changed that much since the 1300s, but the pronunciation has changed drastically since then.

Here are some examples:

dip-dib-deep-*dipe
Modern pronunciation: Dip has a short [I]; dib has a long [I]. Deep has [i] (doesn't really matter if we say that it's long or short, because were not contrasting it with anything.) Dipe has a diphthong. Reconstructing Old/Middle English forms from the spelling would be approximately as follows: *[dIp] *[dIb] *[de:p] *[di:p@].

By contrast: A native English speaker learning to read would analyze it as follows:
dip: short "I" (pronounced [aI])
dib: short "I" (pronounced [aI])
deep: long "ee" (pronounced [e]) (short "ee" would be "e" as in "end" [End])
dipe: long "I" (pronounced [aI])

Depp-deep
dep: short "ee"
deep: long "ee"

----

So, anyway the point is that there are two ways of analyzing vowels in English. The first is the way that uses the phonetic descriptions of vowels, and the second way is the way that is taught in elementary school to teach native children how to read. Because the spelling system that we have represents how words were pronounced hundreds of years ago, we still use the same terminology. But it's important not to confuse the two systems, or it can lead to problems in learning English. The materials that they use to teach English often use a confusing hybrid system.

So,

>> <<Keep, eat, and other words like that have long E sounds, not long I sounds.>>
If [iː] is called "long E", then what should [eː] be called? <<

We don't have [e(:)] in English (except for a few dialects that realize /eI/ as [e].) Yes, /i/ is called "long e"; /eI/ is called "long A" /eI/. "Short A" would be /æ/.

apple: short [eI]
ape: long [eI]

A rule of thumb is that in the other system (the historical based one, and the *only* one that native speakers know or use) is that the so-called "long vowels" are usually diphthongs: /eI/ /ij/ /aI/ /oU/ and /ju/, and the "short vowels" are the lax vowels: /æ/ /E/ /I/ /O/ (or /A/) /U/ (or schwa).
bleat   Sun Feb 15, 2009 9:33 pm GMT
It also depends on the dialect.

In some dialects, there is only a subtle difference between /i/ and /I/ qualities so that's where vowel length comes into it, otherwise tenseness vs. laxity.
Travis   Mon Feb 16, 2009 12:34 am GMT
Okay now, all of you...

The matter is that in English there are fundamentally there different systems of vowel quantity. The first is phonemic vowel length, where every vowel phoneme has an inherent length associated with it. The second is allophonic vowel length, where no vowel phoneme has any inherent length but where all vowels are assigned length depending on what follows (or does not follow) them; note that such may not immediately follow such either, as in some dialects vowel length may very well "ignore" approximants. And then there is the Scottish Vowel Length rule, which is essentially a mixure of the two systems.

Of these systems, the first is found in English English, Hiberno-English, southern hemisphere English, and some North American English dialects, the second is found in most NAE dialects, and the third is found in Scottish English as well as Scots. The fact that both the second system and, to a lesser extent, the first system are found in NAE adds to the confusion, as attempts to generalize NAE as solely having the second system fail yet at the same time if one had to generalize NAE one would say that it does overall strongly tend towards having the second system.
b   Mon Feb 16, 2009 1:50 am GMT
@Travis, would you say that a short [i] would be perceived as [I] instead of [i] by most speakers?
Travis   Mon Feb 16, 2009 7:30 am GMT
It depends. In North America, certainly [i] would be perceived as historical /i:/ and not as historical /I/. Conversely, in Australia, [i] would be perceived as historical /I/ rather than as historical /i:/, as Australian English has eliminated the quality contrast between historical /I/ and /i:/. In other English-speaking areas, though, I really do not know myself.
Travis   Mon Feb 16, 2009 7:33 am GMT
Another note is that allophonic vowel length can be seriously weirded up by sound changes following the loss of phonemic vowel length; loss of consonants that decide vowel length assignment can obscure it, resulting in vowels that essentially seem to have phonemic vowel length. However, I would generally still consider such to be allophonic vowel length simply because such consonant loss is normally optional, and is very commonly reversed in more careful speech.
AJC   Mon Feb 16, 2009 10:02 pm GMT
before an unsounded consonant, there's no real appreciable difference between the length of [i] and [I], so it's in quality that the difference between "leap" and "lip" is noted. Before a sounded vowel, though, the difference in length is marked and, I'd say, more important than the difference of quality. To pronounce "leave" with a short vowel would not make the sound identical to "live" but it would suggest that "live" is the word that was intended, rather than "leave".
Travis   Mon Feb 16, 2009 10:09 pm GMT
>>before an unsounded consonant, there's no real appreciable difference between the length of [i] and [I], so it's in quality that the difference between "leap" and "lip" is noted. Before a sounded vowel, though, the difference in length is marked and, I'd say, more important than the difference of quality. To pronounce "leave" with a short vowel would not make the sound identical to "live" but it would suggest that "live" is the word that was intended, rather than "leave".<<

Hence such would be phonemic vowel length, as mentioned ealier. Note that the matter here is that even in dialects with phonemic vowel length, they generally have elements of allophonic vowel length present as well - but vowel phonemes still have elements of inherent length that show themselves under varying conditions nonetheless.