You agree that "a certain AUE contributor has deluded himself ... "? Thank you.

Suddenly you're throwing around this word "normative", which means about the same as "prescriptive". No one can be rightfully prescribing (normatizing?) a pronunciation of the vowel in "caught" or "cot".


(So to you it means so much that it means nothing.)

Again with the "normative"! And I assume the "you" in "you'd" is the canonical "you" and not me. I certainly wouldn't expect anything from
"sufficiently-normatively-accented" speakers, because I don't think there can properly be any such thing.

You seem to be implying that people who pronounce "cot" differently from "caught" may use a low back vowel for what you choose to call an "aw" sound, which I assume is a vowel you would expect in "caught". But the common pronunciation of "cot" uses a low back vowel. If you're saying only that the difference between "cot" and "caught" you make so much of is only a little variation in the degree of backness, I don't see why you bother to mention it.
The real "caught"-"cot" difference, the one that's worth talking about, is that some people say (kO:t) for "caught" and (kA:t) for "cot".


No.

Not at all true.

If I were to make the statement on another day, with a different intonation and stress pattern, the vowels might be reversed. That is, the one in "Bob" might be farther back than the one in "call".

That statement may carry useful meaning for someone, but not for me. To the extent that it might imply that my pronunciation of the vowel in "Bob" and "call" is the same as the usual pronunciation of "aw" ((O)), it would be completely false, but I think whatever you mean is probably something else that I will never try to understand as long as you insist on talking about a nebulous "aw" sound.

(snip)
As I said in a thread named "Conjure":

(snip)

To the best of my memory, R.J. and Professor Fontana (and others) have discussed that the standard *American* "ah" sound does not seem to have a symbol assigned to it. I use '(A")' as was suggested in one such previous thread. The "British or Western American aw-like 'ah' " would mean (A) if I'm remembering correctly. "Ah" has to be qualified because, unqualified, it means that centralized, low vowel that American's use.

So "aw-like" means back where (A) is defined to be. In contrast to the current American centralized "ah."

So "the sound of 'aw'" means back where (A) is defined to be. In contrast to the current American centralized "ah."

HTH

Al in Dallas

I'm an American. My "ah" is the furthest back of my low back vowels that I discuss at
http://alt-usage-english.org/A vowels.html . It's unmistakably a low back vowel.


It should mean more than that. It should mean (O), which is back, but mid-low rather than low. Again, see
http://alt-usage-english.org/A vowels.html (the position of "court", which uses (O) ((kOrt)).

I wonder how typical and current that is.
I analyzed twelve vowels spoken by Richard Fontana a few years ago. Some of them had an amazing amount of glide, but, for what it's worth, his "hod" started WAY back, then glided to a central position. See the vowel chart at http://alt-usage-english.org/Fontana chart.gif and the formant plots at
http://alt-usage-english.org/Fontana formants.gif .

People in AUE talk a lot about vowels being back or forward, low or high, but most vowels spoken by most people can't really be pinned down that way. They nearly always glide from back to center, from front to center, from low to mid-low, and so on and on.
Incidentally, last time I checked, Richard Fontana said he was not a professor. Has that changed? If not, why do we continue to mislead people that way? So maybe it's an in joke: In jokes are okay in mailing lists, where everyone is "in", but they don't belong in a newsgroup with a general readership.
People who want to use in jokes should go start a mailing list and leave AUE alone.

Why is this more worth talking about than that some people say (kA.:t) for "caught" and (ka:t) for "cot"; or that some people say (kAwt) for "caught" and (kA:t) for "cot"; or that some people say (kO:t) for "caught" and (kA.t) for "cot"? I find all of these fascinating.

Actually, I think it may be even worth talking about the fact that some people say (kA:t) for "cot" and (kA.:t) for "caught", because in this case the only difference is a slight one of rounding, and therefore these are the people among whom the "cot"/"caught" distinction is most likely to disappear.
-Aaron J. Dinkin
Dr. Whom

} At the AUE site, there's a page headed "Pronunciation of } newsgroup contributors' names". The URL is
} http://www.alt-usage-english.org/audio gallery/index.html }
} When you click on "WAV" or "MP3" by my name, you hear me } pronouncing my name, along with a couple of other brief } remarks, one of which is "People call me Bob".
}
} A certain AUE contributor has deluded himself into thinking } there's a substantial difference between my vowels in "call" } and "Bob" in that remark.
That'd be me.
} In particular, he imagines that my vowel in "call" can be } described as the sound of "aw".
An excellent "aw". A model "aw". Along with an excellent and model "ah" in the "Bob".
} If "the sound of 'aw'" has } any useful meaning, it must refer to the pronunciation } that's given to the spelling "aw" in dictionaries, which is } the vowel (O), the open-mid back rounded vowel.
Not quite. "Aw" is between (O:) and (A:). (O:) is a British "aw", and (A:) is a British "ah". Similarly, "ah" is half way between (A:) and (a:), and is known by some as (A":). The "aw" can be found in the "call" of the above-admitted "People call me Bob", and the "ah" can be found in the "Bob" of the above-admitted "People call me Bob".

Some people associate lip-rounding with some other phonetic fiction, maybe "backing", so one person can be talking about "rounding" while another can be talking about backing, and a third can be watching a movie clip where there is obviously no movement of the lips.
} Formant analysis shows that my vowels in "call" and "Bob" in } my "People call me Bob" are both low back vowels, and the } vowel in "call" has no trace of rounding. The vowel in } "Bob" is somewhat farther forward than the one in "call", } but not enough to remove it from the low back area of the } vowel quadrilateral.
It's enough to make it an "ah", rather than an "aw". It's little enough for whole sections of the country to merge them. As much difference as plainly shows on the formant analysis is the amound of difference I'm talking about. Call it delusion if you want, but what can be plainly heard and what shows up on formant analysis is the stuff that reality is made of. I called by hearing, and you found it on the formant analysis. That's the difference I'm talking about.

} The AUE contributor I've referred to is the same one who } came up with the preposterous assertion that my great } granddaughter at the age of about 10 months was saying the } full sentence "I can do it, too"*.
Re-check the thread on that one. There are two separate issues there.

The one of whether Bob Cunningham actually caught his great granddaughter saying her first words on the very movie clip he made available for comment was merely a possible bonus. Maybe it happened, and maybe it didn't. The age of the child doesn't make it impossible. That nobody paid attention in a room where Bob Cunningham was present does not surprise me. If it happened, it's something the family might find worth reviewing and preserving. It was a much shorter sound string, but it'll be suggested in the thread. Something of the magnitude of "I did it", though that may not even be close to the one I reported, just about that length for the baby's sound.The thing at serious issue was whether the granddaughter (the aunt of the great granddaughter), who was on-screen talking almost continuously throughought the movie clip, actually rounded her lips when she said "She can do it, too", which contains two "oo" vowels commonly associated with lip rounding. Now, you can crank up the volume yourself and put the clip on full screen. You can see when she takes a breath, and you can hear the tones of the voices.

There are a couple of different voices on the clip, but the dominant one is of the on-screen granddaughter. A dramatically deeper voice, which Bob Cunningham has identified as his daughter's can be heard at at least one point, and it appears to have an effect on the facial expression of the granddaughter on screen. A head appears at one point in the upper-right corner of the screen, and I suspect that that is the daughter's head with the otherwise disconnected voice.

} I've told family members } about this silly assertion, and it gets a good laugh.

Perhaps because it was misreported to them as here. Heck, I'd laugh, too.

} In } fact, what the AC heard was the child's mother saying "She } can do it, too".
Miraculously synchronized with the granddaughter's breathing and facial movements. At one point, I seem to recall Bob Cunningham claim that that was his daughter saying that and getting offended that from his point of view I was suggesting that he couldn't tell the difference between his granddaughter's voice and the voice of the daughter he had known for over fifty years. I don't recall saying anything directly about his talents in identifying family members, but I'm guessing he's caved on his own point from the sentence quoted above. I say it's the on-screen aunt/granddaughter saying it (and not the off-screen child's mother or Bob Cunningham's daughter), and she's not rounding her lips while she's saying it.
} Nathalie is about 18 months old now and is beginning to say } a few words. I haven't heard her talk, but I get the } impression from her mother's accounts that a lot of what she } says is Norwegian, especially when she's talking to her } father, whose mother tongue is Norwegian, although he speaks } English fluently.
}
} I think Nathalie's peers in what they call kindergarten } in Norway but I would call nursery school are mostly } Norwegian speakers (she can point to each one and say his or } her name). We wouldn't be surprised, when we see her again } sometime next year, to hear her speaking English with a } Norwegian accent.
}
} * You can hear the sound in a 10-megabyte movie clip at } http://www.exw6sxq.com/sparky/images/118 1843.AVI .

Please also watch the breathing and lip movements. The clip is a classic, in any case, and I believe that Bob Cunningham, himself, can be detected on it, as can (if I recall correctly) Mrs. Bob Cunningham. It's worth the download as an example of English usage.

R. J. Valentine