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From: rdd@usa1.com (Aaron J. Dinkin)
Subject: Re: Chain Shift (was Tendency of Inflections to Disappear)
Message-ID: <rdd-2707961804340001@dmn1-13.usa1.com>
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 1996 18:04:34 -0500
References: <4suk93$pob@carrera.intergate.bc.ca> <4tac7o$r22@thighmaster.admin.lsa.umich.edu> <rte-2607961224140001@135.25.40.118> <rdd-2607961343260001@dmn1-39.usa1.com> <Dv682n.J5o@midway.uchicago.edu>
Lines: 75

In article <Dv682n.J5o@midway.uchicago.edu>, wald@ford.uchicago.edu (Kevin
Wald) wrote:

> In article <rdd-2607961343260001@dmn1-39.usa1.com>,
> Aaron J. Dinkin <rdd@usa1.com> wrote:
> >In article <rte-2607961224140001@135.25.40.118>, rte@elmo.lz.att.com
> >(Ralph T. Edwards) wrote:
> >
> >> In article <4tac7o$r22@thighmaster.admin.lsa.umich.edu>,
> >> jlawler@snoopy.ling.lsa.umich.edu (John Lawler) wrote:
> >> > 
> >> > >Is there also a /@:/ phoneme, or do "bird" and "bud" sound the same to
> >> > >Americans?
> >> 
> >> No. Bird has an R colored vowel and bud doesn't (for rhotic AE).  The
> >> pronunciation of bud is very similar to that of most british folk, but
> >> there is no contrast between the two syllables of abut, so one symbol is
> >> used.
> >
> >YES THERE IS!
> 
> In some dialects there is; in some (such as mine) there isn't.
> 
> >              I am an AE speaker and I have always been annoyed by the
> >assertion that there is (for example) no contrast between the vowels of
> >"abut", or, in general, that there is only one phoneme represented by the
> >phones [@] (<u> in "circus") and [V"] (<u> in "tub").
> 
> Oddly enough, I have [@b@t] for "abut", [t@b] for "tub", but [sRki"s]
> for "circus", where i" is IPA barred-i (a high central vowel, which
> occurs in the adverb "just" if you pronounce it differently from the 
> adjective "just"). I thus have no qualms about assigning the vowels of 
> "abut", "tub" and "bud" ([b@d]) to one phoneme, in my dialect, but would
> hesitate to do the same for my second "circus" vowel.

I love these discussions of phonology; they turn up such interesting
tidbits! ("Worry" rhymes with "story" for me, does it for you?)

> >                                                      My proof of the fact
> >that [V"] is not an allophone for schwa is that if it were, "hurry"
> >['hV"ri] would rhyme with "furry" /'f@ri/.
> 
> This doesn't follow. In my dialect, "hurry" and "furry" don't rhyme, but
> that's because "hurry" is /h@ri/ (where I use /@/ to represent the phoneme
> that for me occurs twice in "abut"), and "furry" is /fRi/ (where /R/ is
> my "bird" vowel, an r-colored central vowel of some kind -- I can't tell
> whether it's IPA schwa-with-a-hook or IPA reversed-epsilon-with-a-hook 
> -- which is most certainly *not* [@] + [r]).   

Sure it follows. It follows for you also, but you simply assign different
names to the phonemes. You call /R/ a separate vowel phoneme, while for me
[R] is merely an allophone for /@r/, and where you use your /@r/ it
corresponds (probably exactly) to my /V"r/.

> >                                            From the obvious observation
> >that the two words do not rhyme,
> 
> Well, obvious to you and to me -- it should be made clear, however, that in
> some dialects they *do* rhyme.

I know; I just said that to provoke dissent. I've very sneaky, I am.

> >                                 it follows that there are two separate
> >vowel phonemes at work. If I had to come up with a minimal pair, I could.
> 
> For unadorned /@/ and /V"/, or for what you describe as /@r/ and /V"r/
> (which for me are /R/ and /@r/)?

If /@r/ and /V"r/ are distinct, then /@/ and /V"/ are distinct. For you,
you have two different vowel phonemes /R/ and /@/ (which for me are /@r/
and either /V"/ or /@/), as proven by such minimal pairs as "bird" /bRd/
and "bud" /b@d/ (which for me are /b@rd/ and /bV"d/).

-Aaron J. Dinkin
Dr. Whom

