tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post1005593953958865387..comments2024-03-17T09:14:13.950+00:00Comments on John Wells’s phonetic blog: CilybebyllJohn Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.comBlogger37125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-70203752764112139932011-09-27T22:43:42.257+01:002011-09-27T22:43:42.257+01:00The transcription ˈheəɾ.tən for Hareton is strange...<i>The transcription ˈheəɾ.tən for Hareton is strange.</i><br /><br />Reading əɾ as ɚ, it's exactly what I would say myself as a Yank using a spelling pronunciation. I don't trust that page one bit.John Cowanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11452247999156925669noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-76859470643673845342011-09-21T19:09:32.847+01:002011-09-21T19:09:32.847+01:00Yes, Steve, you're absolutely right, and I reg...Yes, Steve, you're absolutely right, and I regret to say that's all I consulted for that comment. I now find an interesting situation in the COD (1963 ed): bath n. is "bahth, pl pron. –dhz", but bath v. is "-ah- or –ă- <i>in all parts</i>". There's no such distinction in SOED, of course.<br />hardbacks with Murray's original bɑþ most of my life,<br /><br />Ed,<br /> «The transcription ˈheəɾ.tən for Hareton is strange.»<br /><br />You're dead right it is! How extraordinary. I should have looked a bit further. And the way I've got this site set I can now see it's got a flapped ɾ! Same with ˈgɪm.əɾ.tən. For all the careful syllable marking it looks a bit like incompetence. Of course it's not a guide to pronouncing the names in the local accent, and there may have been some intention to allow for rhotic versions of the recommendations for appropriate pronunciations in whatever accent. Perhaps the ɾ was an attempt at doing a superscript or something.mallambhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07086916400059545681noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-90305437473186962642011-09-21T13:39:02.474+01:002011-09-21T13:39:02.474+01:00@ mallamb: I'm not sure where the author is fr...@ mallamb: I'm not sure where the author is from. The transcription <b>ˈheəɾ.tən</b> for Hareton is strange. I don't know of any part of the country that would say it in that way. In the Haworth area, it would be said as ['hɛ:tn].Edhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04081841460525341333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-59673532381405848492011-09-20T21:51:26.900+01:002011-09-20T21:51:26.900+01:00By 'my hardbacks', I presume you mean edit...By 'my hardbacks', I presume you mean editions of the SOED?Steve Doerrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18210787261745134371noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-60950863396823546062011-09-20T17:03:38.391+01:002011-09-20T17:03:38.391+01:00Steve,
No provocation, just a melancholy fact tha...Steve, <br />No provocation, just a melancholy fact that the Uptonization is part of the updating. And for "provocatively" to be provocative to Upton himself I would have thought he would have had to be sufficiently provoked by the Wikipedia article about him I mentioned to correct its misrepresentations himself.<br /><br />I have had hardbacks with Murray's original bɑþ most of my life, and knew what the convention meant, but appear never to have realized that "the OED second edition of 1989 regularly added the ash symbol (æ) after such words in turning over the notation from Murray's set of symbols to one employing the International Phonetic Association's alphabet". Although this quote is from the JWL essay that Ed linked to above, which I recognize, having read practically everything on his site, it appears not to have impinged on my first impression that in the 1989 ed the æ was for US variants, to which I have confessed above. It seems I preferred to believe that it couldn't still be giving æ as an RP variant once ɑː had been established as the RP norm! Of course, on reinspection it doesn't seem to have got very far with providing US variants at all, or with marking them consistently when it did. (Even the present online version hasn't got all that far!) <br /><br />But my hardbacks also give the plurals bāðz, bāðz (but no plural for lɑþ), with ā defined as in "alms (āmz), bar (bāɹ)". Did you notice that? What do you make of it? It doesn't seem to be a usual manifestation of the Scottish vowel-length rule, but Murray must have thought it worth marking, and does so in an unambiguously defined way, unlike his bɑþ. But that doesn't after all seem to do the trick for English TRAP/BATH splitters, does it? And that convention for the plurals certainly hasn't been taken over into the 1989 ed IPA notation in any form.<br /><br />These are all respects in which Uptonization may yet fall by the wayside!<br /><br />Ed, <br />«The point of smoothing is interesting. I don't think that I've ever heard Haworth (the village) be pronounced with a monophthong, even though the local form for MOUTH in that area is [a:]. This suggests to me that it's ['hawəθ] locally, but it might just be pot luck that I've never heard smoothing in this particular name.»<br /><br />Your page on pronunciation in Wuthering Heights is indeed interesting. It explicitly gives an unchecked syllable-final æ in [ˈhæ.wɜ:θ], describing it as in "hat", but a phonotactically sound syllable-final aʊ in [ˈhaʊ.ɜ:θ]. The latter is actually the more mysterious if the local form for MOUTH in that area is [a:]. What I now propose is that it is aː in closed syllables, and what is happening here is that it either reverts to aʊ before a vowel onset or has the linking w I proposed earlier. This may even be a case in which JW would not insist on having no truck with the idea of linking w. Since we are in square brackets I have no problem with representing that as [ˈhæ.wɜ:θ] or [ˈhaʊ.ɜ:θ] (or even the oxforddictionaries.com version ˈhaʊwəθ!) depending on the strength of this linking w. Or your ['hawəθ], or perhaps ['haːwəθ] if the aː is still felt to have the length appropriate to its role as the local form of MOUTH. And that might be what is reflected by ˈhɑːwᵊrθ, the second US variant in LPD3. <br /><br />I wonder if the author of your Wuthering Heights site is a Northern speaker himself. The fact that he gives both wʌ.ðə.rɪŋ and ˈwʊ.ðə.rɪŋ but only ˈθɾʌʃ.kɾɒs may be an oversight, but he says<br />«Penistone "peni" as in "peninsula", "stone" as in "stun", stressed on first syllable ˈpen.ɪ.stən»<br />and the strong e required in the example "peninsula" may suggest that he is, although John doesn’t slap a § on that variant, as he does with most Northernisms:<br />peninsula pə ˈnɪn t s jʊl ə pɪ-, pe-, -ˈnɪn t ʃ ʊl ə ǁ - ə l ə peninsula|s z <br /><br />This may need to be seen in the context of the long ɜː in ˈhæ.wɜ:θ and<br />ˈhaʊ.ɜ:θ.mallambhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07086916400059545681noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-33662990072594304372011-09-20T12:41:05.506+01:002011-09-20T12:41:05.506+01:00This page on pronunciation in Wuthering Heights is...This page on <a href="http://www.wuthering-heights.co.uk/pronunciations.htm" rel="nofollow">pronunciation in Wuthering Heights</a> is interesting. It gives [ˈhæ.wɜ:θ] and [ˈhaʊ.ɜ:θ] for the village. I think that the second vowel is frequently shortened.Edhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04081841460525341333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-17954673680633044412011-09-20T12:38:18.374+01:002011-09-20T12:38:18.374+01:00Editions of the OED have allowed for a short vowel...Editions of the OED have allowed for a short vowel in BATH before this. See <a href="http://www.yek.me.uk/centnthpn.html" rel="nofollow"> point 18 in this essay</a> by Jack Windsor Lewis. <br /><br />@ mallamb: I agree that it can be difficult to distinguish between ['hawəθ] and ['haʊəθ]. The point of smoothing is interesting. I don't think that I've ever heard Haworth (the village) be pronounced with a monophthong, even though the local form for MOUTH in that area is [a:]. This suggests to me that it's ['hawəθ] locally, but it might just be pot luck that I've never heard smoothing in this particular name. I agree that the form with <b>ɔː</b> is probably a spelling pronunciation.Edhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04081841460525341333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-60687015276775531282011-09-20T09:18:53.817+01:002011-09-20T09:18:53.817+01:00@Steve: yes, the difference between "bath&quo...@Steve: yes, the difference between "bath" and "path" is that the latter has been updated (including Uptonisation, which I will provocatively describe as part of updating) to OED3 ("Third edition, June 2005"), and "bath" has not ("Second edition, 1989").JHJhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03257258313943639485noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-40774253775406638912011-09-20T01:47:48.097+01:002011-09-20T01:47:48.097+01:00@mallamb: Could the OED entry simply reflect the c...@mallamb: Could the <em>OED</em> entry simply reflect the conversion of Murray's original <b>bɑþ</b>?Steve Doerrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18210787261745134371noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-65487969397153068822011-09-20T00:40:40.327+01:002011-09-20T00:40:40.327+01:00Thanks for the laugh, Paul. I'll stick with th...Thanks for the laugh, Paul. I'll stick with that rather than follow up your recommendation for the full apoplectic experience.mallambhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07086916400059545681noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-56299299992312700512011-09-19T20:06:33.482+01:002011-09-19T20:06:33.482+01:00@mallamb
For the full apoplectic experience I rec...@mallamb<br /><br />For the full apoplectic experience I recommend Upton's 'Maintaining the Standard' in 'Debating Dialect: Essays in the Philosophy of Dialect Study', ed. Robert Penhallurick. Here he expands on his boat-rocking choice of pronunciation model and symbols.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-39449494596083306252011-09-19T17:42:06.160+01:002011-09-19T17:42:06.160+01:00Ed,
«I think that the local pronunciation of the v...Ed,<br />«I think that the local pronunciation of the village Haworth (as in the Bronte sisters) is ['hawəθ] rather than the ['haʊəθ] given in LPD3. However, I am aware that this is a surname as well as a village and there are many who say ['haʊəθ] for the surname.»<br /><br />LPD3 as you will have seen has no indication of any difference between the village and the surname, and gives 'haʊəθ for the UK only, the transcription (which may not display properly here) allowing for smoothing and compressing:<br />Haworth ˈha ʊ ‿əθ ˈhɔː- ǁ ˈhɔː w ə rθ ˈhɑː- <br />The hɔː variants look like spelling pronunciations with and without linking w (I have only ever heard the 'haʊəθ version myself), and the hɑː variant, although given as US, is at least a well-formed one, the ɑː being in an open syllable. Could this be the local version? It's hard to imagine they could have short a in an open syllable even in Haworth, and I can't see how under normal circumstances 'hawəθ would be distinct from 'haʊəθ.<br /><br />Your oxforddictionaries.com only lists Haworth, Sir Walter Norman, for whom it goes the whole hog and amalgamates the two variants, thus abolishing this problem at a stroke: ˈhaʊwəθ.<br />RH gives ˈhaʊəθ ˈhɔːwəθ for the village (with no obviously US pronunciation) and US hɑːwərθ, ˈhɔː-, UK ˈhɔːwəθ, ˈhaʊəθ for Sir W. <br />Dictionary.com, based on that, has /ˈhɑ wərθ, ˈhɔ-/, but with the sound file [ˈhɑːˌwɝθ].<br />AHD has hou'ərth, härth for both, the latter clearly reflecting the smoothing and compression which John allows for in LPD.<br />Ultralingua.com has Haworth n. ['heɪwəʳθ] for NJ and OK place names. This is certainly a very mercurial name, but that looks odd even for a spelling pronunciation.mallambhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07086916400059545681noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-34403770191359143462011-09-19T16:40:07.030+01:002011-09-19T16:40:07.030+01:00Paul Carley,
Firefox Smartlink added a Wikipedia ...Paul Carley, <br />Firefox Smartlink added a Wikipedia link to your mention of Clive Upton, and I risked apoplexy by following it. It doesn't give details of his system, which is what usually gives me apoplexy, but some dreadful rubbish about its alleged "qualitative-quantitative" presentation meaning "that short vowels are represented by a specific symbol, while long vowels are represented by the same symbol followed by the colon-like mark". It then gets worse and worse. Someone really ought to do something about it. <br /><br />As Ed said, Oxford Dictionaries are using Upton's transcriptions, and give only the ɑː in BATH words. Thus on the Oxford Dictionaries website he linked to we only see /bɑːθ/, with the plural baths /bɑːðz/ to rub it in, as with /pɑːθ/ noun (plural paths /pɑːðz/. Where there is free variance in RP the Uptonian a is given for the TRAP variant:/lɑːθ, laθ/, with the punctilious plurals /lɑːθs, lɑːðz, laθs/.<br /><br />However the similarly Uptonized OED has /bɑːθ/ /-æ-/, and æ hasn't been Uptonized to a, so what is it? It's still used for AmE, but AmE is supposed to be marked as in this entry: Brit. /pɑːθ/ , /paθ/ , U.S. /pæθ/. 'Bath' is treated no differently from 'lath': /lɑːθ/ /læθ/. These and /dɑːns/ /-æ-/ etc appear to be still as in the 1989 version, which gave the US versions without marking them as such. The Uptonization may yet fall by the wayside! But there are some improvements: 'rather' is now Brit. /ˈrɑːðə/, U.S. /ˈræðər/, whereas the 1989 version had ˈrɑːðə(r), which I think was meant to include US.mallambhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07086916400059545681noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-40551918433217373512011-09-19T09:09:19.816+01:002011-09-19T09:09:19.816+01:00@ mallamb: Yes, you are correct on this. The firs...@ mallamb: Yes, you are correct on this. The first three that you've mentioned do not give the local preference in bold text.<br /><br />I think that the local pronunciation of the village Haworth (as in the Bronte sisters) is ['hawəθ] rather than the ['haʊəθ] given in LPD3. However, I am aware that this is a surname as well as a village and there are many who say ['haʊəθ] for the surname.Edhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04081841460525341333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-32322713348990239292011-09-18T19:09:41.736+01:002011-09-18T19:09:41.736+01:00Ed, thank you for understanding. I always value yo...Ed, thank you for understanding. I always value your contributions and this has proved most interesting. I'm glad we did pursue it. I only ever thought there was no point in doing so because I thought I must have misunderstood you. I did say "Ed's apparent implication that [ˈnɒrɪdʒ] was just local, and [ˈnɒrɪtʃ] the non-local norm" even after Lipman had explicitly contradicted that implication and I felt I had to throw in my two-pennorth of support and quote LPD3.<br /><br />So here too is counterevidence from LPD3 for your suspicion that the form preferred in the locality had been emboldened:<br /><br />Newcastle ˈnjuː ˌkɑːs ə l §ˈnuː-, §-ˌkæs-, §•ˈ•• ǁ ˈnuː ˌkæs ə l ˈnjuː- —In Tyne & Wear, locally njuː ˈkæs ə l ˌ Newcastle-(up)on- ˈ Tyne , locally New ˌ castle- ˌ Newcastle- ˌ under- ˈ Lyme <br />Doncaster ˈdɒŋk əst ə ˈdɒŋ ˌkɑːst ə, -ˌkæst- ǁ ˈdɑːŋ ˌkæst ə r ˈdɑːn-, -kəst- <br />Glasgow ˈɡlɑːz ɡəʊ ˈɡlæz-, ˈɡlɑːs-, ˈɡlæs-; ˈɡlɑːsk əʊ, ˈɡlæsk- ǁ ˈɡlæs ɡoʊ ˈɡlæz- — Preference poll, British English: z forms 85%, s forms 15%. <br /><br />I haven't bothered to put in the bolding in these copies of the entries, as it's always the first UK or US variant that's bolded.<br /><br />The joke about Glasgow is that it looks as if the first US variant would be the form preferred in the locality. It would be hilarious if the first UK variant were intended to be! Many years ago I watched a programme about Lord Reith's reign as DG of the BBC in which it was said that he never gave up fighting to expunge ˈɡlɑːz ɡəʊ from the airwaves.<br /><br />A stab at supplementing JHJ's examples with some more where a local pronunciation is made explicit:<br /><br />Burwash place in Sussex ˈbɜː wɒʃ ǁ ˈbɝː wɑːʃ —locally also ˈbʌr əʃ <br />Althorp (i) ˈɔːl θɔːp ǁ -θɔːrp ˈɑːl- , (ii) ˈæl- —but the place in Northants is locally also ˈɔːltr əp , as is Viscount A~ <br /><br />Though according I think to Graham Pointon the Spencers did give up on ˈɔːltr əp.mallambhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07086916400059545681noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-67377000708854127782011-09-18T17:01:11.530+01:002011-09-18T17:01:11.530+01:00@ED
Upton's 'Oxford Dictionary of Pronunc...@ED<br /><br />Upton's 'Oxford Dictionary of Pronunciation for Current English' has both variants included and described as RP.<br /><br />LPD, of course, also has both variants, though the TRAP version is marked as not RP.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-60808506823035351442011-09-17T21:31:14.297+01:002011-09-17T21:31:14.297+01:00@ Paul Carley: Oxford Dictionaries are using Upton...@ Paul Carley: Oxford Dictionaries are using Upton's transcriptions, but I thought that they still only gave the <b>ɑː</b> in BATH words. It's like that <a href="http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/bath?rskey=o9EWjQ&result=2" rel="nofollow">on the website</a> and it's like that in my 1999 dictionary, which has <b>ʌɪ</b> in PRICE, <b>a</b> in TRAP, etc.Edhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04081841460525341333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-64164081573100245622011-09-17T18:39:04.640+01:002011-09-17T18:39:04.640+01:00@JHJ
In that case, you are in luck. Clive Upton i...@JHJ<br /><br />In that case, you are in luck. Clive Upton is the pronunciation editor for Oxford these days and includes the TRAP variant for BATH words in his transcriptions. Which has caused a bit of a storm, because he chooses to call this variety of pronunciation 'RP'...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-8049394164209892342011-09-17T13:08:22.968+01:002011-09-17T13:08:22.968+01:00@Paul Carley: that's essentially what I meant....@Paul Carley: that's essentially what I meant. Of course they're not going to be able to describe everything, but I think they should have a broader model. This particularly applies to BATH words, where the variation is not immediately predictable, and both alternatives are very widespread.JHJhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03257258313943639485noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-34379474812080680032011-09-17T10:01:15.891+01:002011-09-17T10:01:15.891+01:00@ JHJ
I don't know of any dictionaries which ...@ JHJ<br /><br />I don't know of any dictionaries which aim to describe 'British English'. That'd be biting off way more than anybody could chew. The real question is how long dictionaries (especially general, non-EFL, for the consumption of native Brits) can continue to present a south eastern model of pronunciation as the norm for the rest of (at least) England?<br /><br />As a Welshman, I'm a bit of an outsider, but I wonder what Northeners think of the southern bias in all things linguistic in England.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-89425294183662345902011-09-17T09:44:26.179+01:002011-09-17T09:44:26.179+01:00@Ed: The recorded announcements at Sheffield stati...@Ed: The recorded announcements at Sheffield station (and presumably others) pronounce both "Newcastle" and "Doncaster" with TRAP, but otherwise use "RP" pronunciations for words such as "class" and "staff" (and "Glasgow").<br /><br />So I think there is a particularly strong case with Northern place names, but I think that both split and unsplit pronunciations for all BATH words should be included in any publication which claims to describe "British English".JHJhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03257258313943639485noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-51387079944125029662011-09-16T19:28:28.479+01:002011-09-16T19:28:28.479+01:00@ mallamb: OK, I understand what you meant now and...@ mallamb: OK, I understand what you meant now and realise that you didn't mean to be rude :)<br /><br />I remembered the entry in LPD3 for "Norwich" at the time that I wrote my post @13:01, which is why I was writing that RP speakers in a location may pronounce the name in a different way from RP speakers elsewhere. I also remembered that "Greenwich" has the emboldened option with -ɪtʃ at the end. It seemed that, in each case, the form preferred in the locality had been emboldened, but I may be wrong on this.Edhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04081841460525341333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-8600759630954789682011-09-16T19:08:20.025+01:002011-09-16T19:08:20.025+01:00Ed, You can see from my last post that I looked up...Ed, You can see from my last post that I looked up Norwich first, and that ˈnɒrɪdʒ is given as the first preference for it in LPD, but it would be surprising if that were an entry for which details of that preference were given in the form of a preference poll. I wouldn't expect looking up "sandwich" to be much use either, which is why I said "if the preference poll for "sandwich, S~" is anything to go by," but LPD does give the results of one, which I have copied. <br /><br />But the entry for Norwich alone does sort of vindicate my mystification at what you had written, which I thought might be inventively ambiguous or Delphic. I meant no offence and I'm sorry if you took any. I must learn to use smileys.mallambhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07086916400059545681noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-55916309737520077832011-09-16T18:45:15.881+01:002011-09-16T18:45:15.881+01:00P.S. forgot to mention above that Graham Pointon i...P.S. forgot to mention above that Graham Pointon is the author of the BBC Pron Dict (1990).Edhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04081841460525341333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-47540209270083550052011-09-16T18:43:40.081+01:002011-09-16T18:43:40.081+01:00@ John Wells: Thank you very much for looking this...@ John Wells: Thank you very much for looking this up for me. I'm surprised by the stress markings.<br /><br />@ mallamb: I don't think that looking up "sandwich" is much use when it is considered that English has such an inconsistent orthography. I only became aware that <b>ˈnɒrɪdʒ</b> was a possible pronunciation a year ago. My parents met in that city and they both pronounce it as <b>ˈnɒrɪtʃ</b>, as does virtually everyone else I have ever met. Please do not call my comments "Delphic". We've had enough rudeness on this blog recently.<br /><br />@ JHJ: Graham Pointon <a href="http://www.linguism.co.uk/language/olivia-oleary" rel="nofollow">has said</a> on his blog that a short or broad vowel in BATH should be acceptable in place names. He must've been following the convention at the time. Interestingly howsjsay.com has <b>ˈkasl̩fəd</b> as the primary recommendation for "Castleford" (<b>kɑːsl̩fəd</b> is also mentioned). I think that both versions should be considered to be within RP. There are a lot of southern migrants in this agree who pronounce "Castleford" this way even though they say "castle" as <b>kɑːsl̩</b>. It is usually pronounced as <b>ˈkasl̩fəd</b> on the news as well, but then it's usually only mentioned in the context of rugby league.Edhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04081841460525341333noreply@blogger.com