On Sunday, December 19, 2021 at 1:30:56 PM UTC-8, S K wrote:
> On Sunday, December 19, 2021 at 3:46:28 PM UTC-5, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > On Sunday, December 19, 2021 at 2:54:06 PM UTC-5, wugi wrote:
> > > Op 19-12-2021 om 00:10 schreef Peter T. Daniels:
> > > > On Saturday, December 18, 2021 at 4:30:32 PM UTC-5, wugi wrote:
> > > >> Op 18-12-2021 om 20:24 schreef DKleinecke:
> > > >>> On Friday, December 17, 2021 at 1:26:21 PM UTC-8, wugi wrote:
> > > >>>> Op 17-12-2021 om 21:25 schreef DKleinecke:
> > > >>>>> On Thursday, December 16, 2021 at 12:02:10 PM UTC-8, Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> > > >>>>>> Thu, 16 Dec 2021 11:36:49 -0800 (PST): DKleinecke
> > > >>>>>> <dklei...@gmail.com> scribeva:
> > > >>>>>>
> > > >>>>>>> On Wednesday, December 15, 2021 at 9:32:04 PM UTC-8, Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> > > >>>>>>>> Wed, 15 Dec 2021 13:31:53 -0800 (PST): DKleinecke
> > > >>>>>>>> <dklei...@gmail.com> scribeva:
> > > >>>>>>>>> I really do not believe in something called "The English Language".
> > > >>>>>>>>> There is only a big package of idiolects that can more or less
> > > >>>>>>>>> understand one another.
> > > >>>>>>>> That is true of any language, and any group of dialects.
> > > >>>>>>>>> Hah - you read my /Ewr@p/ as though I meant some other phoneme
> > > >>>> Er...
> > > >>>>>>>>> than /e/. Not so - it's just the capital latter used with a name.
> > > >>>>>>>> Phonemic symbols, IPA or otherwise, don't have case, just like Hebrew,
> > > >>>>>>>> Arabic, Devanagari etc. etc. have not.
> > > >>>>>>>
> > > >>>>>>> Who made that rule? i think of // as another font of ordinary English. I
> > > >>>>>>> haven't bothered to invent new symbols for left-out sounds because
> > > >>>>>>> using /h/ as a diacritic works and is traditional. This doesn't impact on
> > > >>>>>>> the vowels (in my scheme) but does introduce /th/, /dh/, /wh/ etc.
> > > >>>>>>>
> > > >>>>>>>>> For
> > > >>>>>>>>> some of your other examples - /nuw/ /bluw/ and /duw/. And, of
> > > >>>>>>>>> course /kewt/.
> > > >>>>>>>> So what I explain as a contextual allophonic variation, for you is the
> > > >>>>>>>> disappearance of a whole, full phoneme.
> > > >>>>>>>
> > > >>>>>>> What disappeared? You wrote /nw/, /blw/ and /dw/ and I added /u/
> > > >>>>>> Southbrit [tju:n], American [tu:n] (in IPA), so the element [j] has
> > > >>>>>> disappeared. In your transcription: /tewn/ and (I would expect) /twn/,
> > > >>>>>> because the /e/ goes missing. But no, you say it's /tuwn/. I wonder,
> > > >>>>>> then why isn't the SouthBrit /teuwn/?
> > > >>>>>>
> > > >>>>>> Something goes missing, and you insert something that was already
> > > >>>>>> there, the [u].
> > > >>>>>>
> > > >>>>>> I just doesn't make sense.
> > > >>>>>
> > > >>>>> It's not /tewn/ in my speech (Northern California). It's /tuwn/ with
> > > >>>>> what people often call a long 'u'. In my system /w/ is not a vowel.
> > > >>>>> This not Welsh. I think that I speak /uw/ before a voiced consonant
> > > >>>>> in free variation between a diphthong and a long vowel .
> > > >>>>>
> > > >>>>> What is this business about /e/ going missing?
> > > >>>> ... but, see before, you had also /Ewr@p/ and /few/ which I can only
> > > >>>> read, if not as some Romance, as "Yurëp" and "fyu:", ie, with a vowel-w-
> > > >>>> and a consonant-e-.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> Writing /yu/ for the diphthong that I write /ew/ is just a different
> > > >>> (and equivalent) phonemic system. I like mine better because it
> > > >>> gives a more symmetric overall scheme.
> > > >>
> > > >> Symmetric?? Incorporating /few/ and /Hewgow/ and then /tuwn/ an /tawn/
> > > >> in the same system?
> > > >
> > > > As Ruud keeps complaining, AmE doesn't have [j] in "tune."
> > > Yes but that's not the case and not the point here :)
> > > >> With a vowelish w in the former ("In my system /w/ is not a vowel.
> > > >> This not Welsh."), a glider in the latter?
> > > >> Or perhaps you mean we shouldn't read /ew/ and /uw/ as pairs of
> > > >> placeholders for sounds, but as one diphthong sound? But then, where is
> > > >> the symmetry between "spelling" diphthongs /xw/ and /yw/ where one is
> > > >> y+vowel /ew/ ~ /ju(:)/, and the other vowel+w /aw/?
> > > >>> I don't see any 'w' in your example or an 'e' consonant. So I ask again
> > > >>>>> What is this business about /e/ going missing?
> > > >>>
> > > >>> I think making the 'u' in "fyu" long is not the way it is usually
> > > >>> pronounced.
> > > >> Anyway how would you distinguish between new, few, you... with a short
> > > >> and then with a long u?
> > > >> /few/ and /feww/? /few/ and /fjuw/ or /fyuw/? ...
> > > >
> > > > Why would they have "with a short and then with a long u"?
> > > >
> > > > short/long is the British phoneticians' way of describing what AmE
> > > > calls diphthongs.
> > > I don't support either camp, but how obscure can a statement be.
> > >
> > > UKE short/long ~ AmE diphthong?
> > > or UKE long ~ AmE diphthong??
> > > If /few/ is not considered having a long /u:/ then it has no diphthong
> > > either???
> > > /jutiliti/ has no diphthong but /ju:z/ has????
> > > Father has a long vowel, ergo a diphthong?!
> > > I'm clearly missing a pointe here.
> > If you're having a problem with David's phonemic analysis,
> > ask _him_. I was simply explaining that both /tewn/ and /tuwn/
> > are ways to phonemicize "tune" --and in this case they seem to
> > reflect different pronunciations.
> >
> > The American phonemic system (Bloch/Trager/Smith) doesn't
> > have a phoneme for what schoolteachers call "long u," i.e. the u
> > that "says its name." It's just the glide /y/ followed by the diphthong
> > /uw/.
> Ie they don't pronounce it like the plain letter of the alphabet but they load a y followed by a "diphthong" in their mental apparatus !!
>
> fuck these impudent fuckers.

Phonemes are what an alphabet should be. That there is no one natural
system of phonemes shows that they probably have no natural existence
in terms of brain function. But until we have a better way of understanding
a brain they are the best we have. Lately it has been fashionable to deny
phonemes make sense but to substitute nothing in their place. Anybody
who writes English should know that English spelling is very difficult to
use precisely and, at least for English, phonemes are needed.

One question of interest here is the two consonants of, say, "Hang". The
utterances of "h" can never be mistaken for utterances of "ng" (which I
write /q/) or vice versa so we might say they are two allophones of the
same phoneme so "hang" is /hah/ or /qaq/. This is too extreme even for
me and I keep /h/ and /q/ separate - /haq/. But it would be legal
phonology.

Incidentally I have a phoneme a majority of English speakers lack - /wh/.
A voiceless /w/. I write "where" as /wher/ and "wear" is /wer/. Yes, I am
strongly rhotic. People who merge /wh/ and /w/ are free to ignore the
diacritic /h/.