[lojban-beginners] Re: Anyone there?

[Tristan Mc Leay <kesuari@yahoo.com.au>]

 --- Robin Lee Powell <rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org>
wrote: 
> On Fri, Aug 20, 2004 at 06:30:10AM +1000, Tristan Mc
> Leay wrote:
> > But that still brings up two issues: 
> >
> >  (1) my original point, that [i] vs [I] is not 
> >      particularly well-attested amongst the
> world's 
> >      languages. Spanish for instance doesn't have
> it. 
> >      To the best of my understanding, langs that 
> >      don't have both tend to have difficulty 
> >      distinguishing them.
> 
> You've gone way beyond me now; ask the Founders.

Sorry... are they to be found here? (Maybe I should
ask the Finders :)

But now that I definitively don't have an answer, I
suppose we can end the tangent now...
 
> >  (2) any non-lojban vowel (apart from [e] and [O],
> 
> >      being acceptible alternatives for /E/ and
> /o/, 
> >      yes?) can be used as a buffer, I thought. So
> if I
> >      wanted, I could happily say rabn. as [rabn=]
> >      or [rab2n] or [rabVn] or any other number of 
> >      options.
> 
> I don't know enough about IPA or phonetics to
> completely follow this,
> but I believe you're corroct.

Sorry, I sometimes assume everyone knows IPA/XSAMPA
and get carried away. Which is silly, but will be
necessary when I'm Overlord of the World.

n= means a syllable composed entirely of the consonant
n

2 is the vowel in Fr. 'deux'

V is the vowel in some English dialect's pronunciation
of 'up' (but not mine, and probably not yours).

But never mind the details here.

> > The best way to approach the phonetics of english
> > dialects is with a clean slate. My dialect also
> has a
> > just-about pure length distinction between say dad
> and
> > mad, bud and barred, shed and shared, and less
> > definitely bid and beard ([I:] and [I@] and
> various
> > other similar sounds turn up as allophones of each
> > other conditioned as much by randomness as other
> > sounds).
> 
> Lost me compeletly.

Um... I just said English was odd, but I took a lot of
words to do it.

> > > Can you give me an example of a word with [I] in
> it?
> > 
> > Well, I suppose assuming short i is [I], then
> > 'little'.
> 
> OK, so what's a word with long i in it, then, in
> your dialect?

Long i? Like in the word 'eye'? (a diphthong)

Or long e? Like in the word 'bee'? (a diphthong)

Or even long [I:] (a long short i), like in the word
'beards'? (not always a diphthong)

--
Tristan.

Find local movie times and trailers on Yahoo! Movies.
http://au.movies.yahoo.com