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Full vowels and weak vowels should be kept distinct

We replaced the transcription ⟨ᵻ⟩ with the KIT vowel ⟨ɪ⟩, so that it now pulls double duty. That's equivalent to transcribing the COMMA vowel with ⟨ʌ⟩. If we're going to merge schwi with anything, we should merge it with schwa ⟨ə⟩. Currently we have a lot of cases where the KIT and COMMA vowels are confused. We'd just need to merge the cells with the COMMA and "rabbit" examples, and change the alias for ⟨ᵻ⟩ in the template. — kwami (talk) 07:18, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Literature is quite clear that RP and other varieties maintain the distinction between Lenin and Lennon, so if we represented them the same the key wouldn't be diaphonemic. You have yet to demonstrate NAmE contrasts KIT and "schwi" in unstressed syllables (last time you brought this up here I asked you for minimal pairs and you didn't respond), and even if you did that's no reason to drop the Lenin/Lennon distinction. Nardog (talk) 10:51, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Well sure, in a diaphonemic transcription we wouldn't have dropped the vowel in the first place. So now we are no longer diaphonemic and the question is whether or not we conflate full and reduced vowels.

Examples in GA are the 'i' in regolith and hippogriff and the 'y' is petroglyph, which are /ɪ/ (contrasting with /ə/ for the o's) -- and in most if not all words with ante-penultimate stress ending in -lith or -glyph -- and course in compounds such as battleship. These vowels are never the conflated schwa/schwi /ə/ in GA, and I suspect not in Oz either.

We could of course reinstate a diaphonemic transcription and distinguish all three -- Lennon, Lenin and KIT. That would be my choice. As it is, it basically boils down to whether someone chooses an American or British dictionary, which is hardly ideal. — kwami (talk) 22:43, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

I do not understand. What is the proposal? How should we reinstate a diaphonemic transcription and distinguish all three (presumably by having another //ɪ// with a different tooltip)? What are the sources for the differentiation? What do other dictionaries do? --mach 🙈🙉🙊 06:07, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

We used to have ⟨ᵻ⟩ for the schwi vowel, as some dictionaries do. (But not MW or the OED: the OED doesn't need it, and MW uses the 2ary stress mark to distinguish schwi from KIT.) That nicely distinguished all three (Lennon was //ə//, Lenin //ᵻ// and regolith //ɪ//). When ⟨ᵻ⟩ was retired, it was made an alias of //ɪ// in the template coding, so all of our schwis became KIT vowels. The merger was because ppl thought it was too difficult to maintain the distinction (we would generally compare MW and the OED, and when they had ⟨ɪ⟩ and ⟨ə⟩, respectively, concluded that the diaphoneme was //ᵻ//, but sometimes both didn't have the word). As a result, which diaphoneme we choose now depends on whether we use an RP or GA dictionary, which of course isn't diaphonemic at all. If we're not going to make the full diaphonemic distinction, I would like to transcribe schwa/schwi as ⟨ə⟩, rather than to conflate full and reduced vowels. — kwami (talk) 06:21, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

What about the weak //oʊ// (as in yellow, cockney [ˈjelɐ])? Would you support reinstating ⟨ɵ⟩ for that? It's also subject to a kind of a weak vowel merger, with /ə/, just not in any major (or "standard") variety of English. I think I'd support reinstating ⟨ᵻ⟩ but not necessarily ⟨ɵ⟩. And what about ⟨ᵿ⟩? Sol505000 (talk) 11:25, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

And how would we source that? How would we decide which vowel should be represented by ⟨ᵻ⟩ and which ⟨ɪ⟩? Regolith strikes me as just following the regular English foot pattern of stressing every other syllable. So if we simply restated our diaphonemic rule ("if you have the weak vowel merger, read /ɪ/ as /ə/ when unstressed") as something like "read /ɪ/ as /ə/ when unstressed and preceded by a strong vowel", we wouldn't have to change anything. One may think that's too complex for our readers to remember, but reintroducing ⟨ᵻ⟩ would be a far greater burden for readers and editors alike just to be able to mark a difference we can't even come up with a good minimal pair to illustrate. Nardog (talk) 11:57, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

That's the problem, I guess.

"Read /ɪ/ as /ə/ when unstressed and preceded by a strong vowel" wouldn't work either. Toolkit has the same strong /ɪ/ as kitbag (and of course kit itself, cf. careless /ˈkɛərlᵻs/, with the reduced KIT), and you have nothing but strong vowels in each syllable of both of the words. Sol505000 (talk) 12:10, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

I have to assume that's the reason CEPD and LPD (and RDPCE for BrE), which mostly do away with post-tonic stress, place it in compounds. We can just do that. Nardog (talk) 12:23, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

That sounds logical. I assume words like hippogriff, which AFAICS you can hardly call compounds, are rare enough to just treat them the same? Sol505000 (talk) 12:34, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

That's just the same as regolith, /ˈstrong.weak.strong/. Nardog (talk) 12:55, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

One of the reasons why ⟨ᵻ⟩ was removed is that it does not belong to the IPA, see Help talk:IPA/English/Archive 21#RfC: Proposed deprecation of /ᵻ, ᵿ/. That reason has not changed a bit. I am strongly opposed to introducing non-IPA signs into an IPA transcription key. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 16:16, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Whether those vowels are transcribed with ⟨ᵻ, ᵿ⟩ or something else (I assume that the closest IPA symbols are ⟨ɨ, ʉ⟩) is secondary. The primary issue is whether we should reitroduce the distinction to the guide. Sol505000 (talk) 16:37, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Nardog, yes, hippogriph and regolith are /ˈstrong.weak.strong/, but other words are /ˈstrong.weak.weak/. How do we distinguish the two cases if we don't have a symbol for the strong vowel? Both the OED and MW distinguish them, the OED by choice of vowel letter, MW by adding a spurious 2ary stress mark. The latter is not a good option for us because, as you say, we use IPA. In the IPA, the stress marks mark stress, not vowel quality. For the same reason, we shouldn't write disyllables as monosyllables with a stress mark, the way the OED does.

As for how we source it, the diaphoneme is {UK /ɪ/ :: GA /ə/}. That is, when the OED has <ɪ> and MW has <ə>, then we transcribe it as this vowel rather than promoting one variety of English above the other. — kwami (talk) 21:23, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

And what are those "other words" that have /ˈstrong.weak.weak/ where the second weak vowel is (according to the current system) //ɪ//?

In the IPA, the stress marks mark stress, not vowel quality. Except American sources do place post-tonic stress in IPA transcriptions... The difference isn't IPA vs M-W, it's American vs British (and even British sources do use post-tonic stress in compounds).

write disyllables as monosyllables with a stress mark, the way the OED does This is demonstrably false. Upton doesn't posit triphthongs, so he transcribes hire as a disyllable rhyming with liar (as does Wells). They just omit stress for monosyllables because they don't need it (unlike M-W, which uses ⟨ə⟩ for STRUT). But that's neither here nor there.

Since the words we transcribe using this key tend to be obscure ones, we don't always have the luxury of being able to compare British and American sources. If the distribution of strong and weak /ɪ/ is so unpredictable as you imply (which you haven't convinced me that it is), how would we decide which ones are strong and which weak when we only have a source for one variety? Nardog (talk) 01:13, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

I didn't imagine I'd have to convince you there are strong-weak-weak words, so I didn't keep track of the ones I came across. One off the top of my head, one with final //ᵻ// is Margaret (OED /ˈmɑːɡrɪt/, MW \ˈmär-g(ə-)rət\). More common are ones with final //ə//, such as Iapetus, which are seldom /ʌ/ -- the vowel's even optionally reduced in omnibus (/ˈɒmnᵻbʌs/ ~ /ˈɒmnᵻbəs/), which is one of the few non-compound words I can recall hearing with final unstressed /ʌ/. So there doesn't seem to be any kind of constraint against having sequences of reduced vowels.

If there's only one source, that's the usual problem of a diaphonemic system. We can partially go by orthography: the KIT vowel is spelled 'i' or 'y', so if it's 'e' or 'a' we can be reasonably confident that it's reduced. This is no different than any other merger, e.g. if we only have a source from a Mary-marry-merry-merging accent for a word we know is one of those. Not an uncommon problem w US/Canadian place names, where it's difficult to tell if in RP it would be PALM or LAW. But we haven't decided to remove the distinction so we don't have to worry about it. — kwami (talk) 06:49, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Try carelessness /ˈkɛərlᵻsnᵻs/ and any other word that ends with -lessness. Sol505000 (talk) 06:55, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Not just strong-weak-weak but strong-weak-weak where the last one is /ɪ/. But you're right, there are opposite etc. Still not convinced that those are enough grounds to restore ⟨ᵻ⟩, though, which would deviate not only from the IPA but even from Upton & Kretzschmar's definition. If you want so much American representation, why the aversion to post-tonic stress? That has far more RS support so it won't be OR. Nardog (talk) 07:26, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

I don't understand the caveat: that's exactly the example I gave you (final /ɪ/ : /ə/). There's also Perseid (OED /ˈpəːsɪɪd/, MW \ˈpər-sē-əd\).

My aversion to "post-tonic stress" is that there's no such thing, and we shouldn't be lying to our readers. If we say that ⟨ˌ⟩ marks stress, then we should use it to mark stress. If we're going to use it for vowel quality, then we should say just that: ⟨ˌ⟩ marks an unstressed full vowel. Then we need to go through and change all existing instances of ⟨ˌ⟩ to ⟨ˈ⟩ (which, after all, is phonemically what they are). However, that would be extremely confusing for people and cause all sorts of problems. I think it's better to just stick with the IPA and use stress marks to mark stress. — kwami (talk) 07:47, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

I wrote that before you edited the Margaret example in. Nardog (talk) 09:00, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Ah, sorry. — kwami (talk) 11:38, 26 November 2021‎ (UTC)

As for objecting to the symbol ⟨ᵻ⟩ because it's not IPA, the choice of symbol is secondary, but I'd like to point out that there's a century-long tradition in JIPA of using non-IPA letters even in their illustrations of the IPA, when the IPA is judged inadequate. Authors prefer to avoid that situation, of course, but they're willing to accept e.g. ɺ with a retroflex hook even though that's not an IPA letter. — kwami (talk) 07:25, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

I see that this usage of ⟨ᵻ⟩ does have precedent in CGEL so it's no more OR than the diaphonemic system itself I guess. If we were to restore it, I'd like to see sufficient consensus building (such as an RfC) and ample clarification of when to use ⟨ɪ⟩, ⟨ᵻ⟩, or ⟨ə⟩. Part of the motivation to deprecate it was that it was used so inconsistently. The way it was defined was so vague people used it whenever they felt it was higher than [ə] (or perhaps that was the initial intended use, as it was ⟨ɨ⟩ before and the key's diaphonemic nature was solidified later). (The key illustrated the value of ⟨ᵻ⟩ with enough, but M-W lists /ɪ/ before /iː, ə/. And it wouldn't be "based on the OED use" if we defined it as "/ɪ/ in RP and /ə/ in GA", nor would it be that "many speakers freely alternate between a reduced [ɪ̈] and a reduced [ə]".) If we restored it we'd probably have to comb through the ~11K transclusions using ⟨ɪ, ᵻ⟩ (and ⟨ə⟩ where Kwami substituted it for them). Nardog (talk) 09:00, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

tl;dr: Has something been decided here where we now transcribe words like fortis as /ˈfɔːrtəs/ rather than /ˈfɔːrtɪs/ (per Kwamikagami at Fortis and lenis)? If so, can we please reflect that here, which otherwise suggests that we still use the weak vowel transcription /ɪ/? Thanks. Wolfdog (talk) 15:10, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

The answer is it hasn't. According to the key we transcribe weak /ɪ/ with ⟨ɪ⟩, and if anyone wants to change that I suggest they establish consensus via e.g. RfC. Nardog (talk) 15:17, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

schwi vs KIT

Moved from User talk:Nardog

My changes to the description of IPA/En are independent of the discussion. It claimed that "In accents with the weak vowel merger such as most Australian and American accents, /ɪ/ in unstressed positions is not distinguished from /ə/." That is false: the abbot/rabbit distinction in reduced vowels is not made, but as the article we link to explains, a reduced ("weak") vowel is not the same thing as an unstressed vowel. Also, the -ing suffix is a bad example: it's not schwi, but simply /ɪ/. So if my proposal is rejected, those things still need to be corrected. — kwami (talk) 08:23, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Whatever you call it, /ɪ/ in -‍ing is defintely not a strong vowel. Otherwise /t/ in heating must be unflapped (if you think that has to do with the word structure, there's the monomorphemic Keating). As far as I can tell, NAmE has only three weak vowels, /ə, i, oʊ/, but preconsonantal /ə/ is often represented with the same symbol as KIT, especially before velars and palato-alveolars as in -‍ing, -‍ic, -‍age (Wells 2008:xxi).

I'm also having a hard time finding more than obscure reference to this concept as "schwi". The only thing I could find that could count as a reliable source was this. I see far more uses of this term synonymous with "the happY vowel" or "schwee": [1][2][3][4][5]. Nardog (talk) 09:54, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Heating and Keating are definitely /ˈhitəŋ/ and /ˈkitəŋ/ in GenAm, not /ˈhitɪŋ, ˈkitɪŋ/. The vowel is weak because it triggers flapping (and because heatin', with a dropped g, has an ordinary central schwa: [ˈhiɾɨn], if not a phonetic zero: [ˈhiʔn̩]), and there is no weak /ɪ/ in GenAm - therefore the underlying phoneme can be safely assumed to be /ə/ (going by [6]), or /i/ for those (who, I assume, are speakers of varieties other than GenAm) that use a tense vowel here (/ˈhitiŋ, ˈkitiŋ/). It's the following velar nasal that pushes /ə/ into the upper left corner of the vowel chart - or, rather, the phone failed to centralize when /ɪ/ started to merge with /ə/ (cf. rang as /reɪŋ/ in GenAm, with an /eɪ/, historically not found in this position, rather than /æ/, [ɛə]). You have the same phenomenon in New Zealand English - the KIT/COMMA vowel (which is normally [ɨ~ə]) is invariably [ɪ] (or maybe even [i]) in this position (and less commonly before other velars) and native speakers of NZE commonly hear it as FLEECE. With DRESS being so close and variably centralized, I have no idea how they don't hear it as DRESS instead, especially because it is a short vowel - but I digress. Anyway, there's plenty of evidence that /ˈhitəŋ/ and /ˈkitəŋ/ is how the words should be transcribed in strict phonemic transcription as far as GenAm is concerned. This is rather similar to the usage of the symbol ⟨ɐ⟩ in transcriptions of German and Danish, which stands for a vowel that is mostly phonetically the same as the full vowels transcribed with ⟨a⟩ (in the case of German) and ⟨ʌ⟩ (in the case of Danish).

But, since you're proposing that ⟨ᵻ⟩ be used for the weak KIT that merges with COMMA in GenAm, I suggest making an exception to that before the velar nasal, where the merged phone is, well, exceptionally close and front, much like the stressed KIT: //ˈhiːtɪŋ, ˈkiːtɪŋ//. Also, in GenAus, I think /-ɪŋ/ is more appropriate anyway as KIT and COMMA are weakly contrastive before velars (plural). Cultivated speakers also have it in -ive, so that massive is /ˈmæsɪv/ in (some?) Cultivated AuE and /ˈmæsəv/ in General and Broad AuE).

For the same reason, should we ever reinstate ⟨ɵ⟩, I suggest keeping /oʊ/ in prevocalic positions such as retroactive //ˌrɛtroʊˈæktᵻv// and follower //ˈfɒloʊər// even though the underlying phoneme here is /ɵ/ (cf. retrograde //ˈrɛtrɵɡreɪd//) for those that admit the existence of the weak counterpart of GOAT. After all, nobody would even think of saying /ˌrɛtrə(r)ˈæktᵻv/ (the variant with a glottal stop would have a diphthong: [ˌrɛtroʊˈʔæktᵻv]) or /ˈfɒlərər/, no? [ˈfɒlɜː] might be a possible RP rendering, though - but in careful speech everybody would say [ˈfɒləʊə], with a clear diphthong. I'd also recommend transcribing follow as //ˈfɒloʊ// (cf. cockney follow [ˈfɔlɐ], which proves that the underlying phoneme here is /ɵ/: /ˈfɒlɵ/) as the GOAT-COMMA merger is strongly non-standard in this position (as is the GOAT-LETTER merger which, of course, is a separate merger for (variably) rhotic speakers). Sol505000 (talk) 13:28, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Surely a reduction in this position isn’t non-standard as per footnote 34, which explains how Merriam Webster lists this pronunciation. Following the reduced GOAT-vowel in the word ‘follower’ with a glottal stop or an ‘r’ instead of a ‘w’ would of course be non-standard though. Ideally we could do with an article entirely devoted to reduced final syllables, such as in the words ‘marathon’, ‘modem’, ‘accent’, ‘medicine’, ‘curtain’ and ‘pecan’. We could also address the way that many people say ‘faggit’ instead of ‘faggut’ for ‘faggot’, even if they don’t say ‘abbit’ for ‘abbot’. Overlordnat1 (talk) 16:04, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Footnote 34 says that MW ⟨əw⟩ is to be understood as /oʊ/ or /u/, not /ə/.

Faggot has an adjacent velar, unlike abbott. It can have the same effect as the following /ŋ/. Sol505000 (talk) 16:11, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

I disagree with the bizarre interpretation contained in the footnote, it stands to reason that MW only include the pronunciation ⟨əw⟩ because they want to reflect the fact that many people do indeed use /ə/ in the word (which of course they in fact do). The issue of how the vowel is pronounced in -ing words could also be addressed in an article on reduced final syllables as well as for words ending in -(g)ot like ‘faggot’ and ‘maggot’. Overlordnat1 (talk) 17:41, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

I find it extremely improbable that follower contains a real /əw/ (a vowel-consonant sequence) as opposed to /oʊ/ (a diphthong, i.e. a single vowel - however it is realized phonetically). This suggests a coda /w/ in follow which, of course, is not possible (at least in the majority of analyses). Even if your GOAT vowel is almost exactly [əu], that still belongs to the //oʊ// diaphoneme, rather than the sequence //əw//. [əu] is not a "reduced GOAT" anyway (not on a phonetic level) - that'd be [ɵ] (without merging with the schwa) or simply [ə] (when the merger does take place). I think that follower and retroactive have a reduced GOAT on a phonemic level but a full GOAT as far as the phonetic realization is concerned (cf. RP heating /ˈhiːtɪŋ/, where the syllable-final /t/ is realized exactly the same as an initial /t/ ([ˈhɪitˢɪŋ]), i.e. as if the word were hea#ting). The reduced [ɵ ~ ə] is probably banned before vowels. Sol505000 (talk) 17:57, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

MW would seem to disagree with you. I'd like to see a RS that it's */əŋ/. Regardless, it's hardly a clear example, and thus it's a bad example. — kwami (talk) 07:16, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

And I'm not going to argue. The vowel is invariably [ɪ] in GenAm (in regional speech it's even closer and more front), which makes /ɪ/ (or however it is transcribed by MW, I assume ⟨i⟩ is their symbol of choice) a reasonable transcription. Hell, even in NZE heating and Keating have the exact same [ɪ] as thing and king. But by the same token, rang should be transcribed /reɪŋ/ in transcriptions of GenAm. Sol505000 (talk) 07:21, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Yeah if you posit an archiphonemic entity that surfaces as [ɪ] before /ŋ/ and as [ə~ɨ] elsewhere, you don't need to add /ɪ/ to the list of weak vowels AmE has. Nardog (talk) 07:30, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps the merger went the other way before /ŋ/. That consonant has odd phonotactic restrictions anyway. — kwami (talk) 08:30, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

/ə/ is banned in this position, so all that (potentially) changes is the phonemic analysis. The phone has always been a frontish [ɪ] (unless you want to go back hundreds of years back, when the vowel was tense [i]. So in that sense, the KIT-tensing before /ŋ/ in California English restores the original close front quality). Sol505000 (talk) 10:42, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Pre-/ŋ/ may not be the only environment where a weak vowel in GA is commonly transcribed the same as KIT btw. Image is transcribed with the symbol for KIT by both Merriam-Webster and Upton & Kretzschmar. Also American sources transcribe the second syllables of civic and havoc differently even though AFAIK they're pronounced the same in accents they represent. So even if we posited and defined ⟨ᵻ⟩ as a weak vowel that is identified with KIT in RP and commA in GA, there would still be contexts where we would have to include /ɪ/ among the weak vowels. Nardog (talk) 09:40, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Dictionaries are often inconsistent, even specialist ones like Longman. There's been a lot of discussion of the realizations of GA /ə/, including [ɪ]. So it's not surprising that it will sometimes be transcribed as /ɪ/, in which case unless we can find a better source we may be stuck with that. But if we don't have a symbol for RP /ɪ/ ~ GA /ə/, then we either need to have parallel RP and GA transcriptions for these words (and there are thousands of them), or choose one variety over the other. Then rather than being diaphonemic, the transcription is a matter of which dictionary the editor chooses. — kwami (talk) 11:36, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

If by Longman you mean Wells (2008 [1990]), he says in the preface (p. xxi): For most Americans ə and ɪ are not distinct as weak vowels (so that rabbit rhymes with abbot). For AmE LPD follows the rule of showing ɪ before palato-alveolar and velar consonants (ʃ, tʃ, dʒ, k, ɡ, ŋ), but ə elsewhere. Where no separate indication is given for AmE, but both ɪ and ə variants are shown for an entry, it may be assumed that AmE prefers ɪ or ə according to this rule. The actual quality used by Americans for ə varies considerably, being typically more ɪ-like when followed by a consonant but more ʌ-like when at the end of a word. Nardog (talk) 13:35, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

So there's how we know which it is. For MW, the distinction is <ə> or <ɪ> vs <ˌɪ>. (There's also the orthographic cue of <ˌɪ> corresponding to 'i' or 'y'.) So no need to include /ɪ/ among the weak vowels. — kwami (talk) 18:22, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

So you're saying you would use ⟨ᵻ⟩ in -‍ing if it was restored? Nardog (talk) 01:29, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

//ŋ// has its own rules. We've only allowed it the vowels /ɪ ɛ æ ʌ ɒ ʊ/. — kwami (talk) 02:56, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

You can't both represent -‍ing with ⟨ɪ⟩ and count it out of the weak vowels at the same time. Those things are mutually exclusive, as we determined above.

I don't think you are making an exception for -‍ing solely on the grounds that /ŋ/ has limited phonotactics—or would you still represent -‍ing with ⟨ɪ⟩ if it were phonetically [ə~ɨ] and commonly represented with ⟨ə⟩? So what's stopping you from representing the weak vowels in civic, gimmick, designate, image, marriage, quidditch, etc., which are also phonetically close to KIT and represented the same as KIT in reliable sources, with ⟨ɪ⟩? Nardog (talk) 06:02, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

This is a phonemic transcription, so we shouldn't be making sub-phonemic distinctions, like /ə/ being close to [ɪ] in some environments and closer to [ɐ] in others. For one thing, it would be difficult to be consistent even within GA, but this isn't a GA transcription either. I don't like ⟨əŋ⟩, but I'd be willing to accept it if that's the consensus. — kwami (talk) 20:27, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

Also /ɔː/ and possibly /ɑː/ (in loanwords) in GenAm. Sol505000 (talk) 06:38, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 November 2021

The IPA transcription for “taxpayer” should be /ˈtæks.peɪ.ər/ not /ˈtæks.peɪər/. It should have 3 syllables. 2A02:C7F:EE9F:B100:50F3:4999:E2FD:B738 (talk) 19:49, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the page Help:IPA/English. Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:27, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

Reactivated: this is the talk page for the article concerned. Please paste in your dismissive red template only after checking the request. 38.121.121.16 (talk) 23:18, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

Not done: Not if you only want to make it explicit that the second syllable begins with a /p/ (which is aspirated), rather than /sp/ (with an /s/ that blocks aspiration). The syllable break after /eɪ/ is much more obvious. As we use the syllable break sign only in exceptional circumstances (and not to break vowel hiatuses), /ˈtæks.peɪər/ is what we want in the guide. By transcribing that word as such we're not claiming that the word has two syllables, but rather that the second syllable begins with a bare /p/. Sol505000 (talk) 05:57, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

edit request: sky crack

In Help:IPA/English#Key, please change

sky crack

to

sky, crack

96.244.220.178 (talk) 08:19, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

 Done -- John of Reading (talk) 10:09, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

RfC: Should we reintroduce the distinction between a full KIT vowel /ɪ/ and the reduced KIT /ᵻ/?

Per the previous discussions (Help talk:IPA/English#Full vowels and weak vowels should be kept distinct, Help talk:IPA/English#schwi vs KIT), should we reintroduce the distinction between a full KIT vowel /ɪ/ and the reduced KIT/schwi /ᵻ/? Sol505000 (talk) 15:18, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Survey

• Support per discussions I've linked to. Sol505000 (talk) 18:40, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
• No. The first reason is the lack of sourcing. Neither Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary nor Longman Pronunciation Dictionary record which words have unstressed /ɪ/ and which /ə/ for their American pronunciations, so I don't see evidence that this is a contrast phoneticians have agreed that makes up the lexicon of North American English.
  The fact we have to resort to such words as regolith, hippogriff, and petroglyph—none of which my spellchecker recognizes—for illustration (and cannot even come up with a true minimal pair, which is customary in establishing phonemic contrasts) says it all. I'm still not convinced this is a contrast speakers consistently make that can be empirically tested and confirmed in waveforms and spectrograms and is not some arbitrary distinction lexicographers have come up with for convenience. Are we seriously to believe educated North American speakers consistently pronounce the last syllable of regolith differently from that of Meredith, and those of hippogriff and petroglyph differently from that of (the most common pronunciation of) handkerchief?
  And say they do, then how would we determine whether a word one is transcribing has unstressed /ɪ/ or /ᵻ/? The aforementioned widely cited dictionaries aren't of help. Some American dictionaries are, but the vast majority of words that need transcribing in this encyclopedia are precisely the kinds general dictionaries don't typically include. It is the case that our diaphonemic representation involves some guesswork when we only have a source for one accent, but all guesswork we currently do is just applying what's evident in spelling (see why we abandoned /ɔər/). If we were to restore ⟨ᵻ⟩, how would we determine which diaphoneme to use in the absence of a source that spells it out? How would, for instance, COVID have been transcribed before dictionaries caught up? The instructions would have to be crystal clear, or we would invite a great deal of inconsistency like there was when we abandoned it.
  The second reason is recognizability. ⟨ᵻ⟩ has never been part of the official IPA and is scarcely used (and, as a consequence, has poor font support), so the vast majority of readers are not going to understand its value. That was why we abandoned it in the first place. Nardog (talk) 18:52, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
• No – this page is Help:IPA/English, but ⟨ᵻ⟩ is not IPA (as Nardog has already said). --mach 🙈🙉🙊 00:01, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
• Yes—There is a sufficient difference in pronunciation and potential (contrastive) overlap in distribution between ⟨ɪ⟩ as in KIT and the diaphoneme under question to justify the distinction. In order to address the objection that ⟨ᵻ⟩ is not an IPA symbol, I'd prefer ⟨ɨ⟩, but I agree with the distinction regardless of choice of symbol. Indigopari (talk) 22:28, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Discussion

@Nardog: So the last vowel in 'battleship' is indistinguishable from a schwa? — kwami (talk) 03:38, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

@Nardog: Per English orthography, the spellings ⟨a, ei, ey, oe⟩ (and mostly ⟨ai⟩ as well, AFAICS) seem to always indicate a reduced KIT (or other vowels, apart from the full KIT), so that Dinklage features both types of KIT: /ˈdɪŋklᵻdʒ/, whereas Boleyn has a full KIT only in the variant stressed on the last syllable: /ˈbʊlᵻn, bʊˈlɪn/. I think ⟨e⟩ (used in about 16% of all KIT words in a dictionary, per Cruttenden 2014:113), most often stands for a reduced vowel as well. ⟨y⟩ (used in 20% of all KIT words in a dictionary), on the other hand, stands for a strong KIT. Also, any instance of KIT that occurs immediately before stress (and is not tensed to [i]) is probably reduced. That only leaves a preconsonantal ⟨i⟩ (used in 61% of all KIT words in a dictionary) as an ambiguous spelling - unless it is preceded by an intervocalic /t, d/, as in autism /ˈɔːtɪzəm/, which clarifies whether ⟨i⟩ stands for a reduced KIT, or a full KIT - the latter blocks flapping, whereas the former does not: [ˈɔtɪzəm] (-ism /-ɪzəm/ is strong-weak like the US pronunciation of -ary /-ɛri/ - or like schism /ˈskɪzəm/, an actual word). So the picture isn't nearly as blurred (and, in addition to that, reintroducing /ᵻ/ would help non-natives with flapping the correct T's and D's!) The wording in Cruttenden 2014:113 seems to indicate that unstressed KIT is more often reduced than full. Sol505000 (talk) 13:37, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Furthermore, there are suffixes such as -ford, -shire, -land, etc. that indicate a clear morpheme boundary after the preceding sound. These too seem to signal a preceding reduced /ᵻ/, as in Hereford /ˈhɛrᵻfərd/ or (GA) Maryland /ˈmɛrᵻlənd/. Sol505000 (talk) 00:18, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

@J. 'mach' wust: This is a phonemic transcription, so the symbols are not phonetically defined. It doesn't really matter which symbol we use, but without making the distinction, we now have separate GA and RP transcriptions, which is what this system was supposed to avoid. — kwami (talk) 03:36, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

I disagree. The IPA signs are symbols. This means they do not only represent a meaning (which would make them pure arbitrary form like the size of a header font), but each and every IPA sign has its own meaning (which makes them verifiable content). This is basic semiotics. Introducing new and usual signs is much more harmful (readers familiar with the IPA would be estranged and readers unfamiliar with the IPA would be taught wrong) than an occasional BE-AE distinction (though I have not seen any article yet where such a distinction would really be necessary). --mach 🙈🙉🙊 06:47, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

@J. 'mach' wust: The main question is about reintroducing the distinction, not about the symbol used which can be anything we decide (⟨ɨ⟩ comes to mind as the most obvious replacement). Your reply is off-topic. Sol505000 (talk) 10:56, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

I have just answered to the question that you have posed. Your question explicitly mentions “the reduced KIT /ᵻ/”. Changing the question mid-way through a Request for Comments is probably not the best idea. But even if you changed the question now, the other points brought up by Nardog would still apply. On top of that, using ⟨ɨ⟩ would be misleading because outside of Wikipedia, ⟨ɨ⟩ is used for the reduced vowel in roses that contrast with the schwa in Rosa’s. We cannot just ignore the conventional use of symbols and redefine them any arbitrary way we feel like. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 11:59, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

You realize that's pretty much exactly how it'd be used here? Roses has a reduced KIT, whereas Rosa’s has the plain mid central schwa. Sol505000 (talk) 12:05, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Huh? I thought it was meant to be a special diaphoneme like ‘/ə/ in AE, /ɪ/ in BE’, not a vowel pronounced [ɨ]. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 14:59, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

If we're not talking about phonemic transcription, why on earth would it make a difference how a small subset of phoneticians use ⟨ɨ⟩ in phonetic transcriptions of American English? This, again, is off-topic. Sol505000 (talk) 15:03, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. Phonemic signs have – like all signs – a conventional usage. Especially in Wikipedia, we should respect that. If we invent new usages for phonemic signs, those who know the signs will be estranged, and those who don’t will be taught wrong. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 15:22, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

There is no conventional use of the sign ⟨ɨ⟩ in any type of phonemic transcription of English, not that I'm aware of anyway. You seem not to be able to differentiate between phonemes and allophones. Sol505000 (talk) 15:24, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

But ⟨ɨ⟩ does have a conventional phonetic value for English, which wouldn't align with the new diaphonemic value, which is no good. If we decide to introduce the proposed distinction at all, I'd take ⟨ᵻ⟩ before ⟨ɨ⟩ because ⟨ᵻ⟩ at least has precedence in CGEL. Nardog (talk) 15:30, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

At least in my accent of English, the diaphoneme for which a new distinction has been proposed, i.e. the sound in words like "Lenin", "Margaret", "careless", and "carelessness", is pronounced identically to the sound in "roses" conventionally transcribed with ⟨ɨ⟩. If the proposed distinction is accepted, I'd support using ⟨ɨ⟩. Indigopari (talk) 22:06, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

@Indigopari: The problem with the sign ⟨ɨ⟩ is that it is conventionally used as a /ɨ/ phoneme on its own right (e.g. by Trager & Smith 1951 or by Bolinger 1986), not as an ‘either /ɪ/ or /ə/ depending on accent’ diaphoneme. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 12:33, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

How about we keep displaying ⟨ɪ⟩ on the surface, but explain the pronunciation in the tooltip? This is how we deal with other information as well, e.g. the difference between /tj/ {{IPAc-en|tj}} and /tj/ {{IPAc-en|t|j}}. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 12:47, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

I'd rather have a separate symbol for the reduced KIT/schwi. Doesn't matter what it is. Sol505000 (talk) 19:56, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

@Nardog: You were looking for a minimal pair - try battle it /ˈbætəlᵻt/ vs. battleship /ˈbætəlʃɪp/, a near-minimal pair. This is the best I can come up with right now. I'm pretty sure that there are at least one or two minimal pairs. Look for (verb) it vs. (noun). Sol505000 (talk) 22:46, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

There's an even better one: catch it /ˈkætʃ.ᵻt/ vs. cat shit /ˈkæt.ʃɪt/ (unless I'm mistaken and the latter isn't stressed like bullshit, horseshit etc.). Sol505000 (talk) 23:12, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

"-ew" vowel

Where on Earth is the symbol for the vowel in "dune", tune", or "new"? Couldn't find it anywhere on the table. Or are we to use /jiːuː/? Mac Dreamstate (talk) 21:55, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

It is not a vowel, but a sequence of /j/ and /uː/, e.g. /ˈdjuːn/ {{IPAc-en|ˈ|dj|uː|n}}. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 22:12, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

tj, dj, nj, θj etc. should be placed in one cell for the dialects that don't pronounce the j. — kwami (talk) 03:34, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Great, that makes sense. The cells, by the way—are we to use them at all times? I've seen some lead section IPAs omitting them altogether, but is that just laziness or some other reason? Mac Dreamstate (talk) 19:05, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Do you mean Template:IPA-en (without the C after IPA)? It works like other IPA templates, such as Template:IPA-de. Sol505000 (talk) 19:22, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Yikes. It seems I'm a bit in over my head here, for I can't tell the difference between either the IPA-en and IPAc-en templates. Which one should I definitively be using for English-language articles where the pronunciation of a name may be unclear? So far I've been using IPAc-en. Mac Dreamstate (talk) 19:50, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Use IPAc-en, which provides tooltips. Nobody uses IPA-en anymore (and if you do, AmazingJus will swoop in and convert it to IPAc-en). Nardog (talk) 19:59, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

FWIW the "c" in "IPAc" stands for "conversion" AFAICT, as the whole point of that series of templates seems to have been to convert orthographic or ASCII representations of the IPA to the Unicode equivalent. I'm still at a loss as to what the two meant by "cells" though. Nardog (talk) 20:04, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

I thought "cells" meant | to separate each symbol—that's what I've seen being used inconsistently. Mac Dreamstate (talk) 20:20, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

I see. If the coronal (/d l n s t θ/) + /j/ is followed by /uː/ or /ʊər/ then it should be put together as one parameter, except in the rare cases where it doesn't undergo yod-dropping or coalescence (as in Matthew), in which case it should be separated by |.| instead. Nardog (talk) 20:30, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Alveolar nasal flap in NAE

How to transcribe the alveolar nasal flap in "Toronto"? Locally, it is pronounced [tɨˈɹɒɾ̃oʊ], [tɨˈɹɒɾ̃ə] or [ˈt̠ɹ̠̊˔ɒɾ̃ə]. Naturally, the first transcription can be converted to /təˈrɒntoʊ/, the second one to /təˈrɒntə/ and the third one to /ˈtrɒntə/. But the /t/ is never sounded in Toronto English, especially in the last two pronunciations which are the most broad in the local speech. So, should it be /nt/ or /n/? Is the alveolar nasal flapped in Canadian English? Sol505000 (talk) 14:08, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

It's my understanding that [ɾ̃] is the /t/. I don't see why it would matter if any dialects also flap /n/ to [ɾ̃], since that would just be an example of the same sort of neutralization that we see elsewhere with flapping that neutralizes the contrast between /t/ and /d/. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 19:21, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Ok, but should it be clarified (maybe in a note) that none of the variants has the voiceless [t] on a phonetic level? One source in Toronto describes [təˈɹɒntoʊ] as non-local. Canadian English#Ontario already discusses this.

Apparently the same applies to Atlanta. Sol505000 (talk) 19:41, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

/nt/ → [ɾ̃] is pretty predictable so I don't see how it needs to be singled out. Nardog (talk) 23:36, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Secondary stress

Hi all. Do we have a consensus to not transcribe secondary stress in any syllable following the primary stress? If so, we'll probably want to explicitly clarify how we've agreed to represent secondary stress on the main page. Thanks. Wolfdog (talk) 01:13, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

A more important question is: is there a "secondary stress" following the primary stress? The fact that the vowel is not reduced isn't a proof of stress. Sol505000 (talk) 20:42, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

No, actually, my original question is the more important one. Many dictionaries transcribe it this way; therefore, it certainly is a widely accepted option. For the name Aristotle, for example, notice secondary stress marked in Merriam Webster, Collins, American Heritage Dictionary, Dictionary.com; Oxford and Cambridge on the other hand don't transcribe it this way. Wolfdog (talk) 21:13, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

Any unreduced vowel is transcribed as "stressed" in the American tradition, which makes e.g. MW an unreliable source in these particular cases. We should transcribe secondary stress based on phonetic research. Sol505000 (talk) 21:16, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

Stress isn't something that has universally agreed-upon criteria for physical measurements to meet (there are correlates, or exponents, but it's not like any syllable where they're found categorically indisputably has stress), so it's whatever you ascribe to it. So I find it futile for us to try to determine what is or is not stress when there clearly exist competing definitions in reliable sources. It's just the case that the American tradition assigns secondary stress to strong vowels following primary stress and the British tradition does not. That doesn't mean the former is any less reliable. I bet you can reliably "confirm" the vowels have higher F0/duration/intensity because strong vowels are, as the name implies, more prominent than weak ones. So the question we should be asking isn't so much "Is it actually stress" as "Which tradition should we follow".

And I'd argue we follow the British one just for the sake of economy (and we have, it seems). The secondary stress given by the American tradition is largely predictable and adds little information. So we can just choose to omit it and avoid having to deal with it (which can sometimes be ambiguous or contentious) as there are reliable sources that do just that. A question that remains then is whether to include post-primary secondary stress the British dictionaries do include, namely in compounds, -‍ism words, and /-ɛri/. Cruttenden (1997) found it "redundant" and called for abandoning it, but I wonder under what rationale RoachPeter and Wells have decided to keep it. Nardog (talk) 10:20, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

R-colored vowels?

Is there a reason r-colored vowels aren't included in the list? ForestAngel (talk) 13:58, 24 February 2022 (UTC)