Re: Pronunciation symbols

On Mon, 26 Nov 2007 16:19:14 -0800 (PST),
"jerry_friedman@xxxxxxxxx" <jerry_friedman@xxxxxxxxx> said:

On Nov 25, 4:48 am, Bob Cunningham <exw6...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sat, 24 Nov 2007 18:39:14 -0800 (PST),
"jerry_fried...@xxxxxxxxx" <jerry_fried...@xxxxxxxxx> said:



On Nov 24, 6:55 pm, Bob Cunningham <exw6...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sat, 24 Nov 2007 16:59:11 -0800 (PST),
"jerry_fried...@xxxxxxxxx" <jerry_fried...@xxxxxxxxx> said:
On Nov 24, 3:28 pm, Robert Bannister <robb...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Bob Cunningham wrote:
We all know that there are a lot of alt.usage.english
contributors who have not bothered to learn and use Evan
Kirshenbaum's ASCII IPA. Among the complains about it is
that it's not sufficiently mnemonic.

Most people should be familiar and comfortable with the
pronunciation symbols that have been used traditionally in
standard dictionaries like _Merriam-Webster's Collegiate_s.
I've been experimenting with a pronunciation-representation
scheme that tries to be as reminiscent as possible of those
traditional symbols.

Anyone who's interested in looking at the present state of
that experimentation can see it at
http://tinyurl.com/35kpr9*.

Comments?

*
http://www.exw6sxq.com/sparky/aue_related/speech_examples/symbol_tabl...

What I chiefly like about it is the way you differentiate between long
and short vowels. I find the Kirshenbaum i/I, e/E to be completely the
opposite to what I would expect.

Me too, but it's not Evan's team's fault. They were imitating IPA.

I hoped that what people would like about is not the way I
differentiate long and short vowels but the way I pattern
everything on the traditional dictionary symbols that most
people should have some familiarity with.

Most American people, that is. I don't think dictionaries elsewhere
use anything like those symbols. As you know, the OED doesn't.

I have the _Chambers Dictionary_, 1993 Edition. It uses
symbols like those in the _Collegiate_, and quite a few of
them are the same. I'm not sure how popular the _Chambers_
is in the UK, but years ago I mentioned in alt.usage.english
that I was going to get a copy of the _Concise Oxford_ to
serve as an additional reference for UK usage. A respected
regular strongly urged me to get the _Chambers Dictionary_
instead. But that's only one vote.

Thanks, I didn't know that.
...

Do you really pronounce "their" as \th_@r\?

Yes, when not stressed and in casual speech. When stressed
it would be \th_er\.

If so, it would be
helpful for you to show how to transcribe, say, "fair" and
"fairy" (unless you say those the same as "fur" and "furry").

'Fair' and 'fairy' would always have some stress, so they
would always be \fer\ and \!fere-\ in both casual and formal
speech.

Are you going to have another symbol for the people who distinguish
between "fairy" and "ferry"?

I'm hampered in doing that because I don't distinguish. For
me they're both \!fere-\. I also have the problem that I'm
basing my symbols on what Merriam-Webster uses, and so far
as I can find, they don't have a way to distingish "fairy"
and "ferry". How would you show the distinction in ASCII
IPA?

The _New Shorter Oxford_ has

ferry /"fEri/ n.
fairy /"fE:ri/ n. & a. See also FAERY.
faery /"feI<schwa>ri, "fE:ri/

The only difference between "ferry" and "fairy" is in the
length of the short vowel (where "length" and "short" are
being used in incomparable senses. There's a serious
terminology problem there.) I've been thinking about using
a '>' symbol to show lengthening. To follow _NSOED_'s
pronunciation, I would write \!fe>re-\.

_NSOED_ has 'feely /"fi:li/'. To be in accord with that, I
would write \!f'e->'le-\, where I've felt it advisable to
use the single quotes to emphasize that the strung-out \e->\
is a single symbol.

I'm still toying with different marks. For example, how
would it be to use parens instead of single quotes to
bracket compound symbols? Caret instead of exclamation mark
for primary stress and single quote for secondary? With
those symbols "freely" is \^fr(e->)le-\ and "freelance"
gives \^fr(e->)'lans\.

I realize that the more we try to expand the system, the
closer we come to a difficult conflict. For example, if we
use parens to bracket compound symbols, what do we use to
bracket alternative sounds. The _Concise Oxford Eighth
Edition_ has for "spore" [spO:(r)], allowing for both rhotic
and nonrhotic pronunciations. With my symbols it becomes
\sp(o.>)(r)\, where the parens have two different functions.
I would then have to consider using square brackets for
alternative elements, which gives \sp(o.>)[r]\.

That would work, but what will the next conflict be?

I suppose I conceivably could eventually embrace all of IPA
with my scheme, but that wasn't what I've had in mind up to
now.

...

Also I'm a bit bothered by
your representation of /aU/ according to the pronunciation but /aI/
according to the most common spelling.

You've lost me there. /aU/ and /aI/ are both valid ASCII
IPA symbols. I don't know what you have in mind.

I have 'aU' in [one] place due to incomplete editing
follow-through. I use \au.\ for the vowel in 'cow' because
the _Collegiate_ has 'a with u dot over'. I use \i-\ for
the vowel in 'bite' because the _Collegiate_ has 'i macron'.

I meant the contrast between \au.\, based on the sound, and \i-\,
based on a spelling. That criticism also applies to M-W Collegiate.

Good point. I had \ow\ for the "cow" diphthong for a while.
I guess I'll go back to it.

So I'm about to make the following changes in the symbol
table:

^ Primary stress
' Secondary stress
(...) bracketing compound vowels
[...] bracketing alternative sounds
ow for the vowel in 'cow'
> for lengthening preceding sound
< for shortening preceding sound

Your system and ASCII IPA
share a flaw that I find annoying: there's no symbol for the vowel in
"centaur" for those of us who pronounce it neither like "tore" nor
like "tar". But then I asked in sci.lang, and nobody told me an IPA
symbol for that vowel either, so you're in good company.

I'd like to hear a recording of your 'tar', 'tore', and
'centaur'. Can you make one and e-mail it to me or install
it somewhere? Or point to a file at IDEA
(http://web.ku.edu/idea/) where they occur?

I can't record it at present (and I must admit it's rather unstable).
I'll try to listen to IDEA at some point, but I think my vowel in
"centaur" is much like that in the Merriam-Webster sound files for
"caught" and other au and aw words. I imagine it's between the vowel
of "core" and that of "car" in front-back, high-low, and rounding.

Thanks again for your thoughtful, careful proofreading and
comments.

Glad if it helped.

It has indeed. If you have any other comments, they will be
more than welcome.
.

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