IsocatSpoken aloud: "Some highschool kids get high".
The "high" vowel is the same in both
They're different
Poll ended at .
CM Harrington@isocat The sound is the same but I tend to extend the latter for a little bit. You could also say the former is clipped. Same sound, different duration.
@octothorpe The vowels aren't the same for me. Both diphthongs, but not the same one. The 'high" vowel in "high" by itself is ah-ee, but in "high school" it's uh-ee, same as in "rice" and "nice" and "splice".
The Cambridge Dictionary does not show a phonetic symbol for my uh-ee diphthong; it has only the ah-ee one, exemplified by "eye", and that's the one it shows for "high", "rice", "nice", and "splice". Wikipedia has a chart giving that same ah-ee diphthong for both "lied" (uses ah-ee in my speech) and "light" (uh-ee in my speech). And the more I look, the more sources I find saying uh-ee is not one of the eight English diphthongs.
I'm not going to start pronouncing "light" as though the vowel were the same as in "pride". It just ain't!
@isocat @troublewithwords nope, you're just crazy ;-)
πΈππππππ₯ ππ π¦πππ€ π@isocat @octothorpe @troublewithwords
There are many different varieties of English. The description you give suggests what is often referred to in linguistics as βCanadian raisingβ (before [s], e.g., also βrightβ vs. βrideβ -- how about for you?). It's not just Canadian, though. Let's appreciate such diversity!
There are many different varieties of English. The description you give suggests what is often referred to in linguistics as βCanadian raisingβ (before [s], e.g., also βrightβ vs. βrideβ -- how about for you?). It's not just Canadian, though. Let's appreciate such diversity!
@ancientsounds I'm not quite sure I understand your query. "right" is uh-ee and "ride" is ah-ee for me, with or without [s] involved.
Also: "ice wine" has two different vowels (uh-ee, ah-ee).
@isocat @octothorpe @troublewithwords
Sorry, I was being overly specific when mentioning [s]. The key factor is said to be whether the following consonant is voiceless (s, f, t, p, k) or voiced (z, v, d, b, l, nasals etc). To test this theory, I'm gonna predict that you may say rice, rife, ripe, hike with βuh-eeβ [ΚΙͺ] and rise, arrive, jibe, rile, rhyme with βah-eeβ [ΙΙͺ]. Right (ruh-eet)?
(You're right of course that dictionaries don't show such details in their transcriptions.)
Right, but it's not a clean division; "sider" is [ΙΙͺ] and "cider" is [ΚΙͺ] despite the voiced consonant, and likewise "rider" is [ΙΙͺ] and "Ryder" (an American truck-rental outfit) is [ΚΙͺ].
@isocat @octothorpe @troublewithwords
Wow, that's a really interesting additional wrinkle! Looks like word structure (suffix -er, or not) and/or syllable structure may also be involved. Deserving of further study, not that I have the resources to do it
β¦and come to think of it, "Khyber" is [ΙΙͺ], but "cyber" and "ribosome" and "riboflavin" are [ΚΙͺ].
More I ponder, deeper goes the rabbit hole. "Hypergolic" is [ΚΙͺ], but "high-performance" is [ΙΙͺ]. "Hieroglyphic" is [ΚΙͺ], but "pyrophoric" is [ΙΙͺ].
@isocat @octothorpe @troublewithwords
Your sider/cider and rider/Ryder contrasts would be sufficient for some phonologists to conclude that [ΚΙͺ] and [ΙΙͺ] are distinct phonemes in your variety of English. Personally speaking, it looks to me like a more complex, multivariate pattern, but that would require a bigger study to get to the bottom of it. A number of studies of βCanadian raisingβ have already been published though e.g. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/284072352_The_Origin_of_Canadian_Raising_in_Ontario
@ancientsounds You're bringing a smile, as I think back to Russ Tomlin illustrating contrastive phonemes by dint of "Poughkeepsie" as spoken by a native AmE speaker ("p'KIPsee") versus a native Mexican Spanish speaker ("pooKEEPsee").
@isocat @octothorpe @troublewithwords
Heheh naa mate
Penguins and polar bears are in complementary distribution as well
@isocat @octothorpe @troublewithwords
Sorry, it's a phoneticians' joke about (against) phoneme theory. Two sounds (such as your 2 diphthongs there) are said to be instances/members of the same phoneme/abstract category if they only ever occur in distinct contexts.
As with any joke, it completely deflates when you try to explain it. Never mind.
Great chatting, anyway. Have a good week!
HernanLG@isocat
They're different because of co-articulation (their context of pronunciation) but that is trivial. In isolation, both words have the same vowel
They're different because of co-articulation (their context of pronunciation) but that is trivial. In isolation, both words have the same vowel
@HernanLG Ah. Then no, they are not the same in my speech, and it's not just a matter of context (co-articulation). The first vowel in "hyper" is not the same for me as the first vowel in "rider". "Sider" has the same ah-ee diphthong as "rider", but my first vowel in "cider" is the one in "hyper" and "mitre" and "midas", not the one in "rider" and "sider" and "fiber" β so "sider" and "cider" aren't homophonous for me.
I didn't spend a lot of years studying linguistics, but well more than enough to know a pronunciation difference like this is not the sort of thing that gets waved away as trivial β it's more likely to spark wars!
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