Talk:Open front unrounded vowel

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is part of WikiProject Phonetics, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to phonetics and descriptive phonology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.

I'm very certain that the Danish example is wrong here. To the best of my knowledge bade is pronounced with an [æ], not an [a].

Peter ^Isotalo 19:21, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Heger's Sprog & lyd is difficult to use due to the fact that the alternative Dania transcription system is used, but by comparing vowel charts and phoneme exampels (pg. 86, pg. 139), it is clear that this is not an [a] but an [æ].

Peter ^Isotalo 22:19, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 Examples 2 Problem with example 3 #97 can't be the right entity code 4 ä? 5 Italian transcriptions

[edit] Examples

The Canadian line is confusing; it almost seems to be saying that stop and bat are both pronounced with [a] in Canadian English. I'm aware of the Canadian Shift leading to [a] in words like bat (in those parts of Canada which show the Shift) but surely these varieties don't also have [a] in stop; I thought they had something more like [ɒ].--JHJ 16:29, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I've always thought the Canadian vowel in stop was an unrounded low back vowel /ɑ/ not a rounded low back vowel /ɒ/, which is a feature of RP. I'm pretty sure CaE uses a similar, if not the same vowel used in GA. Mark 13:38, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

There's a vowel shift called the Canadian Shift - see the draft chapter 11 of Labov et al's Atlas of North American English, p128. The symbol [ɒ] for the relevant vowel is used there. However, since it doesn't seem to be [a] (except maybe in Newfoundland, based on the red dots on Map 13.1 in the draft Chapter 13 of the ANAE), whether it's [ɒ] or [ɑ] isn't really relevant to whether it belongs on this page.--JHJ 16:53, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Also, is the Hungarian example right? Short <a> in Hungarian seems to be usually transcribed [ɒ] (see Hungarian phonology), while long <á> is [aː].--JHJ 16:53, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I added that [a] occurs in the Boston accent. I'm from Massachusetts, and it was actually the example of the Boston accent that taught me what sound [a] represented. --68.160.39.155 06:48, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Problem with example

From the article:

• In GA this vowel occurs only as the first part of the diphthongs [aɪ], as in light [laɪt]; and [aʊ], as in how [haʊ]. However, in the Great Lakes region, this vowel occurs in words like stock as a result of the Northern Cities Vowel Shift.

The problem is that the diphthong in "light" is [ʌɪ], not [aɪ]. Perhaps the example should be changed to "lied" ([laɪd]) instead? Tomer^talk 23:47, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

GA doesn't have Canadian raising. Other than minute phonetic length differences, the vowels in GA light and lied are the same. AEuSoes1 08:39, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

In the western US, these are [ʌɪ] and [aɪ]. Don't know how different this is from GA. kwami 10:13, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

This isn't a matter of Canadian raising, it's a matter of the fact that before unvoiced obstruents, the diphthong [aɪ] is, in GA, pronounced [ʌɪ], not [aɪ]. As made clear in paragraph two of the Canadian raising affects both /ai/ and /au/. Regardless of what our article says about GA, if Tom Brokaw were to say [laɪt] instead of [lʌɪt], people would think he'd gone crazy, or was exhibiting some bizarre affectation. The difference in GA is not between [lʌɪt] and [laɪd], but between [lʌɪt] and [la:ɪd]. Canadian raising actually shortens the [ʌ] to [ə]. Believe me, there's a big difference between what I'm talking about and Canadian raising—call it "American raising" if you must, but it's definitely not Canadian raising, and my point remains that the example in the article is inaccurate. Tomer^talk 22:26, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Well then change the example to lied or lie. AEuSoes1 23:04, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] #97 can't be the right entity code

There is no guarantee that &#97; will have an "umbrella" (not sure what the typographic term for the thing covering the top of the lowercase-a is called.) Isn't there an actual Unicode entity number for this "a" which doesn't depend on the default font? --James S. 17:28, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

P.S. Please see Talk:Voiced bilabial plosive. --James S. 18:39, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ä?

What's with all the ä's? Shouldn't an IPA article contain stanrd IPA characters? 惑乱 分からん 10:30, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Granted, it's central. Sorry. 惑乱 分からん 11:20, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Italian transcriptions

When Italian words are given as examples (in these entries about the vowels in the IPA etc.), long vowels are sometimes transcribed as such, sometimes are not.

In Italian, vowel length is certainly not distinctive; nevertheless, to indicate it in transcriptions aimed e.g. at speakers of Germanic languages has been judged surely useful from a pedagogical point of view by Max Mangold (who transcribes Italian words with [ː] in his Aussprachewörterbuch).

Since these transcriptions are phonetic ([...]), not phonematic (/.../), the length mark MIGHT be used.

But the point is: for the sake of consistency, either always or never.

(In Italian, only the vowels that are at the same time 1) stressed, 2) at the end of the syllable, 3) not word-final are [phonetically] long; all the other vowels are [phonetically] short. Examples: cane [ˡka:.ne], gatto [ˡgat.to], perché [per.'ke].) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tom Hope (talk • contribs).

Yes. Sorry for not signing.

Just a postscript: also John C. Wells transcribes Italian words with the length mark in his Longman pronunciation dictionary. Tom Hope 23:55, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

You ought to put that information in Italian phonology, which seems to already incorporate that in its transcription. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 03:20, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps, all right. But at any rate we should decide whether in these phonetic transcriptions – I mean, in the transcriptions of these entries about the vowels of the IPA – the length mark should be added or not.

Both choices are legitimate, but, for the sake of consistency, the length mark should be either always or never present. Tom Hope 16:53, 20 March 2007 (UTC)