re: Ah = Ar, Aw = Or, Aw =/= Ah / Ar page 2

A few years ago, I recorded myself saying father, bother, on, swan, all, sorry, wash, saw, pop, caught and put ... those are all the same vowel, although the following L and R in "all" and "sorry" affect the color slightly.

My recollection is that there were at least a couple of distinct allophones there. My conclusion, and I think R J Valentine shared it, was that, despite your CICness, you are "one of us".

This subject has been discussed previously in this group. When the schwa sign is used for /V/ as well as the unstressed vowel, the two are considered to be two allophones of the same phoneme. This is how Evan Kirschenbaum sees it, and how the *Merriam-Webster* dictionaries treat it.

*Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary,* 11th ed., uses the schwa in the following ways. The following is a paraphrase, as it looked messy when I tried to represent the text as written.
What follows is based upon the short version on page 40a. There is a longer discussion on page 35a.
@ is used for the first and last s in , the in , the in .
'@ and ,@ are used for the s in and .

superscript @ is used immediately preceding /l/, /n/, /m/, /N/, as in the last syllables of , , , and sometimes . Here the 11th Collegiate represents as /'oUp(superscript @)m/. I thought this was a misprint until I looked up the entry in the dictionary itself. It is shown with two pronunciation variants: /'[email protected]/ and /'oUp(superscript @)m/. An example of the superscript @ before /N/ is the middle vowel in . Superscript @ is also used immediately following /l/, /m/, and /r/, as in the last syllables of French "table," "prisme," and "titre." The superscript @ thus appears to be what in ASCII IPA would be a marker for syllabic consonants. In ASCII IPA that marker is a hyphen which follows the consonant, so that is represented as /'[email protected]>.
@r is used for the and in "further," the s in and the in .
'@r- and '@-r are used in the two different pronunciations of . The hyphen is not used in this fashion in either IPA or ASCII IPA. I don't see how both pronunciations could be ordinarily represented in ASCII IPA except by those who use /V/ instead of /@/: They would be able to distinguish /'[email protected]/ from /'hVri/. However, I could make an ad hoc use of the space to distinguish /'[email protected]/ from /h@ ri/.

Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com

A few years ago, I recorded myself saying father, bother, ... and R in "all" and "sorry" affect the color slightly.

My recollection is that there were at least a couple of distinct allophones there. My conclusion, and I think R J Valentine shared it, was that, despite your CICness, you are "one of us".

What the darn tootin' are you talking about? What club are you trying to make me a member of?
I think I remember you spinning some wild yarn last time, but that doesn't mean I believed it.

Leery Donna Richoux

the "short a" class - in words like "cat", "hat", "rack" the "ah" class - in words like "spa" and ... class: for instance, "glad" is part of the "tense a" class in Philadelphia but not in New York or Britain.

Thanks for the illuminating exposition.
I, a New Yorker, distinguish your "ah" and "short o" classes, and I think other New Yorkers do, too: 'father', et al., are with /A/, whereas 'pot', at al., are with /a/. See article
(Email Removed), reproduced at .
As late as, er, approximately 1990, my sister, a New Yorker, had to take a speech-correction class (in New York) because she "mispronounced" "Nancy thanked the man for the candy." with the tense a instead of the short a.

Michael Hamm Since mid-September of 2003, BA scl Math, PBK, NYU I've been erasing too much UBE. (Email Removed) Of a reply, then, if you have been cheated, http://math.wustl.edu/~msh210/ Likely your mail's by mistake been deleted.

Here are some of the English vowel classes that pattern ... the "ore" class - in words like "hoarse" and "bore"

Actually, "port" is in the "ore" class for me, and this is supported by Chambers and OED 2nd edition. So are most words, for that matter.

I'm not sure that I can detect the difference between the 'or' and the 'ore' classes. They both sound the same to me. Could you perhaps elaborate on this?
Sebastian.

to English is That sentence seems to me to ... identified with /V/ (as in ), which Ifind counter-intuitive. Jonathan

This subject has been discussed previously in this group. When theschwa sign is used for /V/ as well as the ... be two allophones of the same phoneme. This is how EvanKirschenbaum sees it, and how the *Merriam-Webster* dictionaries treat it.

Yes, I know that. But what I said still stands - for some English speakers this is counterintuitive, so your sentence was potentially confusing, because we just don't think of the /[email protected]/ spelt and the /SVn/ spelt "shun" as being the same syllable.

It is quite clear that M-W pronunciations do not attempt to represent non-US varieties of English.
Jonathan

I'm not sure that I can detect the difference between the 'or' andthe 'ore' classes. They both sound the same to me. Could you perhaps elaborate on this?

Aaron can almost certainly describe the history better than I can, but here goes:
"or" class: mostly words derived from Middle English short vowels, and hence spelt with followed by a consonant or at the end of a word, also after or , also . Examples: sort, forty, morning, horse, for (stressed), tor, war, warn, swarm, quarter, dinosaur, Laura, aural.
"ore" class: mostly words derived from ME long vowels, and hence spelt with followed by a vowel (including silent and as a vowel), , or , but also including a few words spelt with plain . Examples: more, wore, oral, story, boar, board, four, mourning, door, floor, port, pork, sport, report, support, worn, torn, force.
Some minimal pairs:
morning/mourning
horse/hoarse
war/wore
warn/worn
aural/oral
tor/tore
for/four (and "forty-four" has three different vowels)

Old-fashioned RP, as represented in the OED 1st and 2nd editions, had the distinction, but modern RP seems to have lost it, and it's now best preserved in Scotland, Ireland and some parts of England and Wales. (I'm from Sheffield, with some northern Irish influence.) For me the distinction is (O in "or" as against a diphthong (o@) in "ore". Others do it differently.
Jonathan

I hope this attempt at an explanation is helpful. If I've been unclear, or you think I've got something wrong, I hope the group will set me straight, and of course don't hesitate to ask more.

You deserve the aue stipend, sir, for your clear and sensible contributions.

Adrian

I'm not sure that I can detect the difference between ... the same to me. Could you perhaps elaborate on this?

Aaron can almost certainly describe the history better than I can, but here goes:

You've got it about right, as far as I can tell. I'd just like to add one thing about mergers:

"or" class: mostly words derived from Middle English short vowels, and hence spelt with followed by a consonant or ... or , also . Examples: sort, forty, morning, horse, for (stressed), tor, war, warn, swarm, quarter, dinosaur, Laura, aural.

I don't think is in the "or" class; rather, it's in the "aw" class followed by /r/ - or, if you prefer, the "awr" class. You apparently merge these two classes, but I keep them distinct: I pronounce "Laura" with my merged "aw"/"short o" vowel, not with my merged "or"/"ore" vowel. (I'm hesitant to call "awr" a class in its own right because in my own dialect it can't occur syllable-finally; but see below regarding Appalachia. I may need to rethink the way my quick-and-dirty analysis into classes treats the difference between rhotic and non-rhotic pronunciations; as is it can't quite describe rhotic dialects in which, for instance, "or" is distinct from "aw", but not from "aw" followed by /r/.)

"Dinosaur" may be a sporadic exception; it's in the "or" class for me, but I believe there are dialects that maintain an "or"/"awr" distinction in which it's not in the "or" class. I understand that there are dialects in the central western Eastern U.S., in and near the Appalachian mountains - West Virginia, western Virginia, western North Carolina - in which "aw" remains a diphthong with an (U) offglide. In these dialects, I think "dinosaur" would end in (sAUr), not (sOr).
-Aaron J. Dinkin
Dr. Whom