Some tricky sounds in American English

Travis   Thu Dec 13, 2007 9:27 pm GMT
>>For the record (what with it *not* being the UK), these *are* distinguished in northern English, good being /U/ and book /u:/<<

Yeah, I do know that there are differences in the sporadic shortening of long vowels before /t d T D/ in northern English English dialects from most southern English English and North American English dialects. I myself was just wondering if Guest was from northern England because of this.
Guest   Fri Dec 14, 2007 1:26 am GMT
Resolve, Involve, Dall have /A/ in General American
and in NYC too...

L-influenced pronunciations shouldn't be given in dictionaries:
involve, pulse, dull, bull with Q...
Guest   Fri Dec 14, 2007 1:28 am GMT
Resolve, Involve, Doll, Dollar have /A/ in General American
and in NYC too...

L-influenced pronunciations shouldn't be given in dictionaries:
involve, pulse, dull, bull, doll, dollar with /Q/...
Guest   Fri Dec 14, 2007 8:11 am GMT
<Yeah, I do know that there are differences in the sporadic shortening of long vowels before /t d T D/ in northern English English dialects from most southern English English and North American English dialects. I myself was just wondering if Guest was from northern England because of this. >

I see. Because you specifically mentioned a foot-strut split, I thought you were excluding there being none as a possibility.
Travis   Fri Dec 14, 2007 4:15 pm GMT
>>Resolve, Involve, Doll, Dollar have /A/ in General American
and in NYC too...

L-influenced pronunciations shouldn't be given in dictionaries:
involve, pulse, dull, bull, doll, dollar with /Q/...<<

We have to take into account what these were in (a notional) proto-North American English, so to speak:

"involve" /In"vQlv/
"doll" /"dQl/
"dollar" /"dQl@r/
"pulse" /"pVls/
"dull" /"dVl/
"bull" /"bUl/

The /Q/ in PNAE "involve", "doll", and "dollar" is not due to L-coloring. The only sort of L-coloring that occurs with these words is that the presence of /l/ often interfered with the father-bother merger such that /Q/ was not merged with /A:/ but rather was merged with /O:/, and even for those dialects where merger with /A:/ did occur, the presence of /l/ in syllable codas frequently results in the favoring of a more backed and rounded pronunciation of /A:/.

As a result, "involve" here is [1~:n"vQ:Uv_0], as historical /Q/ in "involve" was merged with historical /O:/, which later was lowered to [Q]. Similarly, while "doll" does have the FATHER vowel here (which I would normally transcribe as /a/ in the context of my own dialect), the presence of /l/ in the syllable coda favors a backed and often rounded realization of such, resulting in alternation between [A] and [Q] in "doll" here. However, such does not affect "dollar" or "dolly" here, as /l/ in such falls in a syllable onset, resulting in ["da:M\R=:] and ["da:M\i:] here. The case of "dolly" is important, as it is morphologically related to "doll", and thus helps show that "doll" really has /a/ (historical /A:/) rather than /Q/ (historical /O:/) here.
El Conquistador   Wed Dec 19, 2007 4:32 am GMT
These guys have explained a lot of indication symbols that most learners don't realize what these captions mean.

Let me help you out with an easier explanation.

In the Iberian Spanish transliteration writing. Many words derived from English are changed for a familiar writing. As in leader for líder or leadership which means liderazgo.

1) ON, CAUGHT, THOUGHT, VOLUME, RESOLVE.
óan, cot, zot, vóaliom, resóalv (British)

an, cat, zat, váliom, resalv (American)

2) BOOK
buoc (In "uo" it's almost eliminating the sound of oo to become o as in pork only)

SOUP, FOOL
sup, ful

Never confuse full for fool as in bitch for beach.

fuol / ful bíech / bich

In bitch "íe" makes more long e while short e is almost not heard.
El Conquistador   Wed Dec 19, 2007 4:53 am GMT
Some guys say "pin" like "pen" but this is an error. Don't say "this" as if it were "thes".

This is Jim.

Thes es Jem. (wrong)

Thees ees Jeem. (wrong too)

Dhíess íes Jíem. (good)
El Conquistador   Wed Dec 19, 2007 5:08 am GMT
I don't press my lips or mouth to pronounce complex vowels, such as short i and short u.

In the Iberian Spanish transliteration writing
hat jéat, never say ha:t
hot jóat, never say ha:t / perhaps "hard" sounds ha:t if you say t instead of d erroneously.
hut joat

heat jit
hit jíet


You might think this I explain is a shit. In fact, this is so but I don't get confused with.
El Conquistador   Wed Dec 19, 2007 5:21 am GMT
In bitch "íe" makes more long e while short e is almost not heard.

You might think "íe" makes more short e indeed, but long e disappears
and you're able to press your lips hard to say b in bitch instead of betch or much less like beach. I don't want that you do the same crap, buddy!