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From: pardoej@lonnds.ml.com (Julian Pardoe LADS LDN X1428)
Subject: Re: [V"] is just anaother schwa? (was Re: Stressed schwa)
Message-ID: <DvpLw0.A0G@tigadmin.ml.com>
Sender: usenet@tigadmin.ml.com (News Account)
Reply-To: pardoej@lonnds.ml.com
Organization: Merrill Lynch Europe
References: <32030f1e.148305189@nntp.ix.netcom.com>
Date: Tue, 6 Aug 1996 09:19:12 GMT
Lines: 40

In article <32030f1e.148305189@nntp.ix.netcom.com>, exw6sxq@ix.netcom.com (Bob Cunningham) writes:
-->pronunciation symbol used in COD8, where the pronunciation of "fern" is
-->shown with a lengthened (with a ":") reversed epsilon.  
-->
-->     More than once I've searched in vain for a reversed epsilon in the
-->IPA vowel table, and found it an extremely frustrating experience.  Just
-->now I finally noticed that in the fine print near the vowel table in CEL
-->it says a reversed epsilon is "Variety of [schwa]".  Now I'm frustrated
-->by not knowing what they mean by "variety".  If they mean "variant
-->symbol" then the reversed epsilon is just another way of writing a
-->schwa.  If they mean by "variety" "close but slightly different in some
-->respect", then the reversed epsilon is a way of writing something that's
-->almost a schwa.  Can some knowledgeable person explain what CEL means by
-->"Variety of [schwa]", and also explain why the reversed epsilon doesn't
-->appear in the IPA vowel table?  There must be a difference between [V"]
-->and [@]; otherwise, why would COD8 use both of them?

As I said in a previous post:
In British RP the sound nearest to a "stressed schwa" is the sound in "fern".
In the most common IPA transcription the symbol for this is a turned "open E"
plus a length mark, for which the ASCII/IPA symbol seems to be [V":].  Although
it isn't as far as I can tell just a "long schwa" (the tongue is lower in the
mouth) most RP speakers would probably agree that it is.

So maybe that's what they mean: similar to schwa but with the tongue
slightly lower.

-->     Anyway, it appears that when Aaron Dinkin writes /fV"n/ for "fern"
-->he is in close agreement with the pronunciation shown in COD8, though he
-->would be in closer agreement if he wrote /fV":n/.  It also seems to me
-->that the choice of [V"] for this mysterious "variety" of schwa may be
-->unfortunate in that it suggests a close relationship of schwa to [V]
-->that just isn't there in many peoples' speech, including mine.

It's doubly unfortunate when people who don't know RP are trying to
that one or other of these sounds doesn't exist!

-- jP --


