Words you love because of their sounds

[Travis B.]

I am used to /ˌkaləˈrɛdo/ > [ˌkʰaːɯ̞̯ʁ̍ˤːˈʁˤɛːɾo(ː)] for Colorado and /nəˈvɛdə/ > [nəːˈvɛːɾə(ː)] or /nɪˈvɛdə/ > [nɨːˈvɛːɾə(ː)] for Nevada

Huh, [ɛ] would sound weird to me in either word. I'd say [ka lɚ ˈæ ɾo], [nə ˈvæ ɾə].

Mind you that this is just reflecting a chain shift of [æ] > [ɛ] and likewise [ɛ] > [ɜ] (part of the Northern Cities Vowel Shift). I mark these as /ɛ/ and /ɜ/, rather than as /æ/ and /ɛ/, respectively, as there really is no reason to consider them the latter as the contrast today IMD therefor is clearly a front-central contrast rather than a height contrast (even though the former may break into a rising, opening diphthong when strongly stressed).

[finlay]

@finlay: Personally I think the part quoted in the 1949 IPA Principles booklet should be changed because it gives an inaccurate impression of the way languages are pronounced. I can perfectly understand leaving out diacritics and transcribing e~ɛ as e but acting as if /ɛ/ is actually /e/ is just too much homogenisation.

Not really, because in the languages where you would do that, there's no distinction. When you have slashes, it's a theoretical construct anyway.

As for Aussie english, are you sure it's not [æ] and [a]? You guys tend to have something like [ɛ] for your TRAP vowels anyway, IME.

[jmcd]

Too theoretical. It should show the most common phone of the phoneme, as a general rule. I mean, if you transcribe a vowel which is most commonly realised as [ʉ] (and basically never as ) as /u/, then people will think they are pronouncing . Like when I was at school, I thought I could manage and [ʉ] but was having trouble with [y]. Turns out what I thought was was actually [ʉ] and [ʉ] was actually [y]. So I was actually having trouble with and didn't realise it and was pronouncing French and German words incorrectly.

Bascially the symbols used in one language need to be relatable to the ones for other languages.

[Travis B.]

Too theoretical. It should show the most common phone of the phoneme, as a general rule. I mean, if you transcribe a vowel which is most commonly realised as [ʉ] (and basically never as ) as /u/, then people will think they are pronouncing . Like when I was at school, I thought I could manage and [ʉ] but was having trouble with [y]. Turns out what I thought was was actually [ʉ] and [ʉ] was actually [y]. So I was actually having trouble with and didn't realise it and was pronouncing French and German words incorrectly.

Bascially the symbols used in one language need to be relatable to the ones for other languages.

This does not necessarily work well when one is covering a wide range of dialects in a language such that it works out well diachronically, for instance.

Take English historical /uː/, /ʊ/, and /oʊ̯/ - by that guideline they ought to be called /ʉː/, /ʉ̞/, and /əʊ̯/ respectively - except that the former set works out much better diachronically when one considers all English dialects and not merely what is most common. There are still English dialects that preserve [u(ː)], [ʊ], and [oʊ̯] as realizations or which have other realizations that still make more sense with the former set rather than than the latter set, e.g. having [o(ː)] for historical /oʊ̯/.

(Of course, with my own transcriptions here, I am not representing historical phonemes in English but rather phonemes specific to my own dialect - but even then I tend to base my representations in terms of what makes sense phonologically and provides a useful textual representation, not what is merely most common realization-wise.)

[jmcd]

Well I was talking specifically about my own dialect, where I have /ʉ/, /ʉ/ again and /o/ for those vowels.

And by what I was saying above no it wouldn't be /ʉ̞/ or /əʊ̯/ because diacritics are not necessary for phonemic transcription unless maybe there is a phonemic contrast between the one with the diacritic and the one without.

[finlay]

Well I was talking specifically about my own dialect, where I have /ʉ/, /ʉ/ again and /o/ for those vowels.

Come on.... you ought to know they should be square brackets.

[jmcd]

Well yeah due to the fact that I'm repeating one of them.

[Imralu]

The catch phrase is [ˈget̚n̩̪ðəˈkʲaː weːgaːnːaˈmɪndən] ... which, with a normal Aussie accent would be more like: [ˈget̚n̩̪ðəˈkäː weːgɐwənəˈmɪndən]. A cookie for anyone who can write that out in English.

Get in the car, we're going to Minden?

Yeah, the closest I could get is /ˈbrɪzbɪn/ > [ˈb̥ɰˤɪːz̥b̥ɨ̃(ː)n]; compare with Lisbon /ˈlɪzbɪn/ > [ˈʟ̞ɪːz̥b̥ɨ̃(ː)n]~[ˈɰɪːz̥b̥ɨ̃(ː)n].

Yeah, perfect! They rhyme!

I have seen analyses of English having four levels of stress elsewhere, but at least for my own dialect, tertiary stressed syllables may have reduced vowel nuclei while unstressed syllables may have full vowel nuclei, whereas typically a four-level analysis equates unstressed full vowels with tertiary stress.)

Yeah, I've seen the four levels of stress analysis too. Do you mean:

Primary Stress: full vowels
Secondary Stress: full vowels
Tertiary Stress: reduced vowels
Unstress: full vowels

?

That makes no sense to me. IMD

Primary Stress: full vowels
Secondary Stress: full vowels
Tertiary Stress: full vowels
Unstress: only /i/ and /ə/ (and possibly /ɪ/ in closed syllables)

I never knew how Australians say "Melbourne" and "Australia". I'd say [ˈmɛɫ bɚn], [ɔs ˈtrel i jə]. (I hope I'm using ɚ correctly— it's the vowel in bird.)

[ˈmɛɫ bɚn] is fine. Of course, we don't pronounce the rhotic, but it would be unnatural for you not to. Saying that ɚ is the vowel in "bird" though seems strange to me. I think of [ɚ] as being equivalent to /ər/. IMD, bird doesn't have /ə/; that's only found in unstressed syllables. We have /ɜː/. I am of course well aware that American dialects often merge RP /ə ʌ ɜː/. If you pronounce the second syllable in Melbourne like the word "burn" that seems very strange to me, but since these no distinction between /ɜː/ and /ə/ I guess the thing that would really bother me is any hint of secondary or even tertiary stress in the <bourne> part.

[ɔs ˈtrel i jə] is fine too. I prefer the schwa at the beginning, but [ɔ] is better than any a-like sound. Have you seen the word "Strine"? That's a joke word based on the Australian lazy pronunciation of "Australian". The /l/ disappears because of the adjacent /j/, and then the schwas disappear. The Australian equivalent of the RP /eɪ/ (your /e/) is /æɪ/, which approaches [aɪ] in a broad accent and is frequently heard by foreigners as rp /aɪ/ (which we have as /ɑe/)

As for Aussie english, are you sure it's not [æ] and [a]?

Positive. It's definitely a low vowel.

You guys tend to have something like [ɛ] for your TRAP vowels anyway, IME.

[ɛ] for /æ/ is a very broad accent. New Zealand accents usually have [ɛ] in words like "trap", and to me it sounds like "trep". Some Australians approach that, but not quite to the same extent.

/a/ has a range from about [äː] to [aː] with [aː] being at the broader end of the scale.
/æ/ has a range from a little bit lower than [æ] to around [ɛ] with [ɛ] being at the broader end.

[Travis B.]

I have seen analyses of English having four levels of stress elsewhere, but at least for my own dialect, tertiary stressed syllables may have reduced vowel nuclei while unstressed syllables may have full vowel nuclei, whereas typically a four-level analysis equates unstressed full vowels with tertiary stress.)

Yeah, I've seen the four levels of stress analysis too. Do you mean:

Primary Stress: full vowels
Secondary Stress: full vowels
Tertiary Stress: reduced vowels
Unstress: full vowels

?

That makes no sense to me. IMD

Primary Stress: full vowels
Secondary Stress: full vowels
Tertiary Stress: full vowels
Unstress: only /i/ and /ə/ (and possibly /ɪ/ in closed syllables)

I meant that vowel reduction is uncoupled from tertiary stress versus unstress, in that one can have unstressed "full" vowels and tertiary stressed reduced vowels in addition the usually expected unstressed reduced vowels and tertiary stress reduced vowels, with the exception that /ɪ/ and /ə/ not resulting in a syllabic consonant are both [ɪ] and [ʌ] in primary and secondary stressed syllables and [ɨ] and [ə] in tertiary and unstressed syllables.

(Note that I have a separate phoneme /ʌ/ constrasting with /ə/, but this is a special case that occurs only before /r/ before a fortis obstruent, which is necessary to consider due to irregular changes to /a/ in this position where it mostly is raised (and backed) but in a few words is not.)

[SilentMember]

Some I like would include

thine
eloquent
animosity
perfluent

but I especially love the phrase

"Thine eloquent animosity hath ruined our perfluent revolution."

I just feel awesome for saying it.

[Travis B.]

About the tertiary stress versus quaternary stress (i.e. fully unstressed), I should note that for me they have nothing to do with vowel reduction except for /ɪ/ and /ə/, which are reduced for both. Rather, where they matter is in two fashions:

Intervocalic /t/, /d/, /nt/, /n/, and sometimes /nd/ (probably via an intermediate /n/) tend to be elided intervocalically before fully unstressed syllables (but not tertiary stressed syllables), except finally, where then their intervocalic elision is conditioned depending on whether the preceding syllable is not fully unstressed (i.e. that by default the following syllable would have been unstressed had it been in the same word). This phenomenon, albeit with the details varying significantly, is actually quite common in Inland North dialects and varieties of GA in close contact with them, it should be noted.

(Note that there are some other intervocalic elisions that are not predictable and rather are heavily lexically conditioned, particularly those of /b/, /v/, and /ð/, and also /n/ and to a lesser extent /d/ do have a significant tendency to be elided finally without requiring any intervocalic position.)

Also, at least in some varieties of my dialect there is another phenomenon in my dialect conditioned by this, where intervocalic /p/, /tʃ/, and /k/ tend to become [b̥], [d̥ʒ̊]~[d̥ʑ̥], and [ɡ̊] respectively (preceded by short vowels, and hence contrasting with /b/, /dʒ/, and /ɡ/ which are realized in the same positions as [b̥]~, [d̥ʒ̊]~[d̥ʑ̥], and [ɡ̊]~[ɡ] respectively, preceded themselves by long vowels) before unstressed vowels but remaining [p], [tʃ]~[tɕ], and [k] respectively otherwise. This is not universal even in my dialect; e.g. people from the particular suburb where I grew up seem to generally have this, myself included, but people from even other parts of the same metropolitan often lack this.

[Whimemsz]

poultice

(also, that reminds me as well of poltroon, which it's a damn shame no one uses anymore because it's hilarious)

[Bob Johnson]

poultice

(also, that reminds me as well of poltroon, which it's a damn shame no one uses anymore because it's hilarious)

What about poultry?

[Whimemsz]

meh

[Viktor77]

Metallurgy. Even in Russian this word is awesome as in the Металлург Магнитогорск hockey team of which I own a jersey.

[Miiil]

**Long Post at the Top of This Page**

In my accent (which could be considered one of the more "British" Aussie accents, as I'm from suburban Sydney) the cities are:

/'bɹɪzbn/
/'sɪdnɪi:/
and
/'mɛlbn/

I do however say Australia: əst͡ʃɹæɪlɪjɐ

[Herr Dunkel]

How do you pronounce <elasticity>, <ergonomics> and <Skyrim> ?

[sarcasmo]

How do you pronounce <elasticity>, <ergonomics> and <Skyrim> ?

[ˌɪlɜsˈtɨsɨɾɪ]
[ˌəɹgoʊ'nɐmɨks]
[ˈskaɪɹɨm]

[Travis B.]

elasticity: /ɪˌlɛˈstɪsɪti/ > [ɨːˌʟ̞ɛˈs̻t̻ɪsɨɾ̥i(ː)]~[ɨːˌɰɛˈs̻t̻ɪsɨɾ̥i(ː)]
ergonomics: /ˌərɡɪˈnamɪks/ > [ˌʁ̩ˤːɡ̊ɨ̃ːˈnaːmɨʔks]
Skyrim: /ˈskəe̯rɪm/ > [ˈskəe̯ʁˤɨ̃(ː)m]

[Thry]

Bring the love.
[...]
Soliloquy /səˈlɪləkwi/

Thank God this is loving "because of the sounds", because if it were for the spelling I'd send that word to hell. Such an unnatural usage of qu.

[finlay]

How do you pronounce <elasticity>, <ergonomics> and <Skyrim> ?

/ˌilasˈtɪsɪti/ [ˌiːɫasˈtɪs(ɪ)ti]
/ɛrgəˈnɔmɪks/ [ɚgəˈnɔmɪʔks]
/skairɪm/ [ˈskɑiˌɹʷɪm]

[Vuvuzela]

Inuktitut phonotactics seem specially designed to produce funny/cool sounding words. Among my favorites are:
ᐊᐳᕗᑦ (apuˈvut) which means "our snow"
ᐊᑖᑕᖓᑦ (ataːtaˈŋat) which means "their father"
ᑎᑎᕋᔪᖓ (titiʁadʒuˈŋa) meaning "I write"
ᓂᕆᓚᖓᙱᓚᓯᒃ? (nirilaŋanŋilaˈsit) meaning "Won't you two eat?"
I'm sorry if my IPA, Inuktitut grammar, or syllabics are off, I am far from mastering any of those things.

[finlay]

Inuktitut phonotactics seem specially designed to produce funny/cool sounding words. Among my favorites are:
ᐊᐳᕗᑦ (apuˈvut) which means "our snow"
ᐊᑖᑕᖓᑦ (ataːtaˈŋat) which means "their father"
ᑎᑎᕋᔪᖓ (titiʁadʒuˈŋa) meaning "I write"
ᓂᕆᓚᖓᙱᓚᓯᒃ? (nirilaŋanŋilaˈsit) meaning "Won't you two eat?"
I'm sorry if my IPA, Inuktitut grammar, or syllabics are off, I am far from mastering any of those things.

Why write it in IPA? Inuktitut has a latin orthography. (There's also not much point in marking stress if it's predictably on the last syllable of a word)

[Vuvuzela]

Why write it in IPA? Inuktitut has a latin orthography. (There's also not much point in marking stress if it's predictably on the last syllable of a word)

I do that habitually for foreign alphabets.Want me to go in and change it?

[finlay]

Nah, no point.