Re: ring & rink

--- In phoNet@yahoogroups.com, "Jean-Paul G. POTET" <potetjp@w...>
wrote:

> "Do you make the difference between phone and phoneme? Phone = a

linguistic

> sound uttered by a speaker. Phoneme = a set of phonetic traits the
> realisations of which depend on the phonotactic position it fills."
> Jean-Paul G. POTET, FRANCE
>
> "Even making such a distinction, different English dialects have
> different sets of sounds. Some speakers have the same vowel in the
> stressed syllables of 'caught', 'father' and 'bother'. Others have

two

> the same and one different, and there are two possibilities for

this.

> Others still (like myself) distinguish all three, but may not
> distinguish between 'caught' and 'court'. My dialect has phonemic
> length; others have a tense--lax distinction (some

(/e/, /i/, /u/, /o/)

> of the tense vowels in that are diphthongs (/&i/ &=ae-ligature, /@i/
> @=schwa, /@u/, /6u/ 6=turned a) in my dialect, and some of my long
> vowels (/e:/, /I:/; some /a:/, /o:/) are combinations

(/Er/, /Ir/; /Ar/,

> /Or/) or don't exist as separate phonemes (/O:/, /&:/) to those with
> tense vowels). [...]" Tristan McLEAY, AUSTRALIA
>
> Thanks a lot for the data. But ... whatever the language or dialect
> considered, it has a set of linguistic sounds called "phones", and

from this

> set a linguist can determine a phonemic system. There is no such

thing as a

> language or a dialect without a phonemic system.

What, then, is the phonemic system of English? Not British English,
not American English, not Australian English, but *English*. As a
start, I suggest you just try reconciling British Received
Pronunciation and General American, and don't worry about the
Canadian splits of the vowel phoneme in "ripe" and "size".

Richard.