Mastodawn

CM Harrington Mar 6

@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.

Isocat Mar 6

@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!

@troublewithwords

#Linguistics

𝔸𝕟𝕔𝕚𝕖𝕟𝕥 𝕊𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕤 🔉Mar 6

@isocat @octothorpe @troublewithwords
There are many different varieties of English. The description you give suggests what is often referred to in linguistics as “Canadian raising” (before [s], e.g., also “right” vs. “ride” -- how about for you?). It's not just Canadian, though. Let's appreciate such diversity!

Isocat Mar 6

@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).

𝔸𝕟𝕔𝕚𝕖𝕟𝕥 𝕊𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕤 🔉

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 “uh-ee” [ʌɪ] and rise, arrive, jibe, rile, rhyme with “ah-ee” [ɑɪ]. Right (ruh-eet)?

(You're right of course that dictionaries don't show such details in their transcriptions.)

Isocat Mar 7

@ancientsounds

Right, but it's not a clean division; "sider" is [ɑɪ] and "cider" is [ʌɪ] despite the voiced consonant, and likewise "rider" is [ɑɪ] and "Ryder" (an American truck-rental outfit) is [ʌɪ].

𝔸𝕟𝕔𝕚𝕖𝕟𝕥 𝕊𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕤 🔉Mar 7

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

@ancientsounds @octothorpe @troublewithwords

Isocat Mar 7

…and come to think of it, "Khyber" is [ɑɪ], but "cyber" and "ribosome" and "riboflavin" are [ʌɪ].

𝔸𝕟𝕔𝕚𝕖𝕟𝕥 𝕊𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕤 🔉Mar 7

@isocat @octothorpe @troublewithwords
Super interesting!

@ancientsounds @octothorpe @troublewithwords

Isocat Mar 8

More I ponder, deeper goes the rabbit hole. "Hypergolic" is [ʌɪ], but "high-performance" is [ɑɪ]. "Hieroglyphic" is [ʌɪ], but "pyrophoric" is [ɑɪ].

𝔸𝕟𝕔𝕚𝕖𝕟𝕥 𝕊𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕤 🔉Mar 8

Your sider/cider and rider/Ryder contrasts would be sufficient for some phonologists to conclude that [ʌɪ] and [ɑɪ] 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 “Canadian raising” have already been published though e.g. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/284072352_The_Origin_of_Canadian_Raising_in_Ontario

Isocat Mar 8

@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").

𝔸𝕟𝕔𝕚𝕖𝕟𝕥 𝕊𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕤 🔉Mar 8

Heheh naa mate

Penguins and polar bears are in complementary distribution as well

Isocat Mar 8

@ancientsounds

…ruh…

Y'lost me on that last curve.

𝔸𝕟𝕔𝕚𝕖𝕟𝕥 𝕊𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕤 🔉Mar 9