--- In phoNet@yahoogroups.com, "David Russell Watson"
<liberty@p...> wrote:
> --- In phoNet@yahoogroups.com, "wtsdv" <liberty@p...> wrote:
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham"
> >
> > > Is it obvious why you group /e/ with /E/ rather than with /I/?
>
> I thought some more about this and I think I see what you
> are saying. I can't figure out how to handle all of the phonetic
> symbols in e-mail, nor how to make charts, so I've prepared
> and attached a picture file to answer you. Chart A shows
> what I think is my version of the English sound system and
> some of its rules. B shows your suggested grouping of /e/
> with /I/, and I include a parallel grouping of /o/ with /U/.
> C and D show the two other possible divisions of the rest of
> the system given your suggested division of the upper area.
> E shows the system as I suggest it should be divided.

Wow! You went to a lot effort.

I would suggest Scheme F as a possibility.

High group: i, u
Mid-high group: I, ej, U, ow
Mid-low group: E, &, V, O
Low group: æ, a

The issue, however, is whether one gains or loses anything other than a
reduction in symbol count by treating what I see as a unitary sound [ej]
(or rather [eI]) as a sequence /Ej/ (or /Ij/, were you to confuse
everyone by taking me up on my suggestion.). I think that overall one
lose, by implying identities that aren't there.

It is partly a matter of horses for courses. Treating diphthongs as
sequences does work for Martha's Vineyard and the earlyish a-o
mergers of many IE languages. I know English has some striking
features in common with PIE :-
1) Hard to identify laryngeals (unless that paper in a Belgian journal was =

a spoof :-). - It recognised 'stale' as being related to 'stand', and
having the constitution /staXl/ where X = laryngeal.
2) Phonetically and typologically marked 3s present suffix /z/. (The 3s
is the form that is most likely not to have a suffix!)
3) Significant apophony (consider 'photograph' and its derivatives)
3) Arguably an actual laryngeal, /r/, in British English -
'secretary' /sEktrI/ (deprecated form), presumably < /sEk&tri/
< /sEkr.tri/ < /sEkr&tri/.

I still don't think its diphthong system is similar.

Incidentally, whoever called [&] an 'undisputed allophone of /V/' was
being provocative. It is disputed for 'Received Pronunciation' (RP), near =

minimal pairs of /&/ v. /V/ being 'oppose' v. 'uphold' and 'gallop'
v. 'hiccup'. My source for these pairs is 'Phonetics' by J. D. O'Connor
(Penguin Books, 1973). He admits that they are allophones in
American English.

I'm curious about your low and low back vowels. How do you
pronounce 'top', 'bomb', 'calm', 'talk', 'walk', 'horse' and 'hoarse'?

Incidentally, the back (i.e. right) edge of the vowel quadrilateral ought
to be vertical. It motivates the asymmetry one can get between front
and back vowels. When the going gets tough, I resort to Extended
SAMPA, save that I use '&' for schwa, as text after an at sign (@) gets
mangled in the archives to prevent spammers gathering e-mail
addresses. I can actually enter 'æ' from the keyboard -
alt/numlock/0230. Extended SAMPA is defined at
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/sampa/ipasam-x.pdf . (For PIE,
Greek, Sanskrit and Proto-Germanic, language-sensitive capitalisation
for ill-supported fricatives, 'superscript' features, uvularity and being
retroflex works better.)

Richard.