Re: Re[8]: [tied] Re: PIE initial *a

At 4:58:01 PM on Thursday, May 15, 2008, Andrew Jarrette
wrote:

> "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@... net> wrote:

[...]

>> In RP the three are distinct: /A:/ in <father>, /A./ in
>> <pot>, and /æ/ in <cat>. (In case you're not familiar
>> with the ASCII IPA symbols, /A/ is script-a, and /A./ is
>> turned-script- a.) Almost all U.S. speakers have the same
>> vowel in <father> and <pot> (the father-bother merger),
>> notated /a/ and typically low central, contrasting with
>> /æ/ in <cat>; in SSE the vowels of <father> and <cat>
>> have merged as /a/ (generally realized, I believe, as
>> [a]), while <pot> has merged with <caught> as /O/.

> I would say that most, but not almost all, U.S. speakers
> have /a/, low central, in <father> and <pot>.

That's what I said. If you will read carefully, you'll see
that I did not say that almost all U.S. speakers have a low
central vowel in <father> and <pot>. I said that almost all
U.S. speakers have the *same* vowel in these two words. I
then went on to say that it is typically low central,
meaning for most speakers.

My mistake, I stand corrected.
>

> if /a/ is taken to be low front (as officially in IPA),
> not low central.

If there is just one low, unrounded vowel phoneme, it is
perfectly correct to represent it as /a/, using the least
marked symbol in the right general area. Your 'officially
in IPA' really refers to the phones [a] and [A], which are
a somewhat different matter.

-----

My contention is that what is denoted as [a] in languages like Italian and French is closer to what is denoted as [æ] in English (apart  from where it is pronounced [Ea] or [E&] or [I&]) than what is denoted as /a/ in American English (and denoted as [A.] in RP and realized as [A] in Canadian English).  When Americans use their /a/ (in <pot>, <father>) for Italian [a], it does not sound like the Italian [a], to my ear at least, being articulated noticeably further back than the Italian sound; note also that in my experience many Spanish and Italian speakers substitute their [a] for our [æ], but not for our [A] (or American /a/). I think our [æ] has the tongue position of Italian [a] but maybe not the height, while American /a/ has the height of Italian [a] but usually not the same tongue position (front or back).(Of course, some substitute [E] for our [æ], but I do not usually hear them use [a] for our [A] (or /a/), I'm pretty sure I more often hear them use [O] (at least Italians, and also Russians) -- but of course this is all subjective and can vary between individuals and according to education, experience, etc., not to mention whether I am a good enough judge of these sounds.  This is all just my impression.

Andrew