Talk:Checked and free vowels

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Why is ʌ listed as a checked vowel, or even as a vowel at all? It's identical to schwa so far as I can tell.

In American English, [ʌ] is phonetically very close to or the same as schwa, but in other accents it's quite different. Phonologically, their distribution is also completely different, as [ʌ] is used only in stressed syllables and must be followed by a consonant, while schwa is used only in unstressed syllables and need not be followed by a consonant. Angr (talk • contribs) 07:46, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

But if it's not present in American dialects, why is it listed as a checked vowel for General American?

Another question: Is there a multi-syllable word where [ʌ] is used? The example given is a single syllable word, and stress in such words can be somewhat ambiguous. (While there is only one syllable for the stress to fall on, most one syllable function words are left completely unstressed when pronounced in context.) I'm also confused about the claim that rhotacized schwa can't stand in unstressed syllables: What about "murderer"? /"m@`=d@`=.r@`=/

(actually that last syllable is more like /M\`@`=/, but I'm not quite sure of the X-SAMPA for a rhotacized velar approximant, which is basically the semi-vowel equivalent of /@`=/). Linguofreak 15:50, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

/ʌ/ is present as a phoneme in American English, it just happens to be acoustically very similar to [ə]. There are plenty of polysyllabic words with /ʌ/: mother, cupboard, puppy, putter, scuppernong, buttocks. The stressed syllable of murderer is considered to have /ɝ/ rather than /ɚ/, although there probably really is no phonetic difference between these two. Both symbols are used primarily to facilitate comparison between rhotic and nonrhotic accents: murderer is rhotic /ˈmɝdərɚ/ and nonrhotic /ˈmɜːdərə/. Not everyone follows these conventions, though; I have certainly seen transcriptions of American English where bud and bird are written /ˈbəd/ and /ˈbɚd/ rather than /ˈbʌd/ and /ˈbɝd/. Neither system is wrong, but I think the system that uses different symbols for stressed syllables than unstressed syllables is more popular because there's less potential for confusion. Angr (talk • contribs) 16:36, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Can you give a minimal pair between /ʌ/ and [ə]? I hear no difference. Aren't two phones considered allophones of the same phoneme if they sound identical to a native speaker?

Linguofreak 18:38, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I can't think of a minimal pair off the top of my head, and if there were one, the two words still have to have different stress patterns since [ʌ] appears only in stressed syllables and [ə] only in unstressed ones. A near-minimal pair, differing otherwise only in the initial consonant, is pickup /ˈpɪkˌʌp/ vs. hiccup /ˈhɪkəp/. There are certainly people who argue that [ʌ] and [ə] are the same phoneme for precisely the reason you gave. Other people say [ə] isn't a phoneme at all, the distinction between all lax vowels (except /ɪ/ in some accents) is lost in unstressed syllables. Following this reasoning, the phonemic form of hiccup doesn't have to be /ˈhɪkəp/ because it could just as easily be /ˈhɪkɛp/, /ˈhɪkæp/, /ˈhɪkʌp/, /ˈhɪkʊp/ or /ˈhɪkɑp/ anyway, so why posit an extra phoneme? Other people would say that stress is predictable from vowel quality, so [ʌ] and [ə] have to be separate phonemes to distinguish /pɪkʌp/ from /hɪkəp/. There's not one easy answer. Angr (talk • contribs) 19:07, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Problem being, I don't have any stress contrast between pickup and hiccup.

Just as a side note, do you know why certain schwa's in certain dialects become /I/? It's quite prevalent in my dialect, but I can't find any rhyme or reason to it. "Banana" is /b@n{n@/, but allophone can be either /{l@fon/ or /{lIfon/, and "reason" is always /rizIn/. I can't figure out under what conditions /@/ stays the same, under which ones it becomes /I/, and under which ones it alternates. Linguofreak 23:28, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

According to the IPA chart (see International Phonetic Alphabet), [ʌ] is a back vowel (the unrounded version of [ɔ]), and in classic RP and other accents it is spoken as such. But in a large proportion of accents (certainly my own, which is approximately Estuary English, and I think General American) its actual realisation is [ɐ], a near-open central vowel (i.e., the same as [ə] but more open). It's probably debatable whether there is a phonemic contrast since [ə] only appears in unstressed vowels.

Having said that, I would urge people not to write anything in the article based solely on discussions here - we should be citing sources at every step. Hairy Dude 16:11, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Missing" phoneme

I notice that this article doesn't list the RP vowel /ɒ/ as a checked phoneme. Obviously it doesn't exist in General American (which has for the most part undergone the father-bother merger), but I think it is worth listing all the same. Thoughts? Hairy Dude 15:58, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

It may be desirable to include it, but as it is now, the examples are explicitly only from General American, so this'd need to be rewritten. -- j. 'mach' wust ☞ ☏ 17:33, 16 November 2006 (UTC)