Talk:Australian English phonology/Archive 1

message: #Diphthongs are vowels. Why the title Vowels And Diphthongs?  Writing Vowels and Diphthongs is like writing Beer and Ale when you only need write Beer.  I suggest deleting and Diphthongs.
#Accordingly the introductory paragraph to the phonology section should be adjusted.  To say that cultivated and general AusE use "11 vowels, 8 diphthongs and the schwa" is simply incorrect.  Along with the diphthongs the unstressed central vowel (represented by the IPA's schwa) is a vowel too.  These are twenty vowels not eleven.It would be more correct to write that cultivated and general AusE use "11 stressed monophthongs, 8 diphthongs and the schwa vowel".  However, there remains a problem.  Are the vowels in hear and hair monophthongs or diphthongs?  To make matters worse we have the vowel(s) in tour does this count as a seperate phoneme?
#What do we do?  Write that cultivated and general AusE use "12±1 stressed monophthongs, 7±1 diphthongs and the schwa vowel"?  Obviously not.  The best solution would be to say that they use 20 vowels.  The details of the exact quality of these vowels are contained in the table in the following section. - Jimp 10Mar05
#Yes, diphthongs are vowels. The section should be retitled Vowels.
#The vowels in hear is a diphthong, while for most Australians the vowels in hair is a long monophthong, but some would consider it a diphthong. Some would consider the vowels in tour as either a diphthong or two monophthongs, but I'm not sure that the vowel(s) would constitute as a separate phoneme.  Most of this has been explained in the article.
#Yes, according to the table based on Harrington, Cox and Evans (1997) there would be 11 monophthongs and depending on the person 6 or 7 diphthongs for general and cultivated AuE. It must be noted that long vowels have the same quality as short vowels, hence the same vowel with different lengths (e.g. [e] &  represents the same vowel with different lengths).
:– AxSkov 13:02, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Vowels: Diphthongs & Schwa

message: Here's the current introduction to the Phonology section.
The "cultivated" and "general" accents use 24 consonants, 11 vowels, 8 diphthongs and the schwa.  (The "broad" accents employ a myriad of different vowels and diphthongs).  Australian English is a non-rhotic dialect; 'r' is pronounced only before a vowel, otherwise replaced with a schwa.
- Jimp  18Mar05
====Non-Rhotic Dialect====
Also the second sentence in this section is wrong.  Australian English is a non-rhotic language; 'r' is pronounced only before a vowel, otherwise replaced with a schwa.  AusE is not a language but a dialect (I've fixed this - 18Mar05).  Non-prevocallic <r>s are not simply pronounced as /@/.  Consider the words art, port, turn, etc.  Where's the /@/. - Jimp  10Mar05
:It would probably be better to say "...otherwise replaced with a schwa or/and a long vowel." All of the words you have mentioned use long vowels, but centre, enter, colour, etc use schwa. – AxSkov 08:52, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Phonology Intro

message: Also the second sentence in this section is wrong.  Australian English is a non-rhotic language; 'r' is pronounced only before a vowel, otherwise replaced with a schwa.  AusE is not a language but a dialect (I've fixed this - 18Mar05).  Non-prevocallic <r>s are not simply pronounced as /@/.  Consider the words art, port, turn, etc.  Where's the /@/. - Jimp  10Mar05
:It would probably be better to say "...otherwise replaced with a schwa or/and a long vowel." All of the words you have mentioned use long vowels, but centre, enter, colour, etc use schwa. – AxSkov 08:52, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Non-Rhotic Dialect

message: *gone takes on a peculiar quality: whereas all other  (born, saw) became , and all  (hot) became , gone stayed as .
Somehow I think that what's really going on here is the the remnants of the LOT-CLOTH split.  This split exists in conservative RP but has been lost in modern RP.  It's also all but gawn from AusE too. 
You can hear the same happening in the word off as well.  However, it seems to me that these pronunciations are on the out.  I haven't heard anyone of my generation or younger using  for these words. Also I don't know whether the word became is appropriate. It seems to imply that the Aussie accent evolved from conservative RP.  This is not the case.  -Jimp  15Mar05
: Hm. I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone who says 'gone' as [gO:n] say 'off' as [O:f], which, in any case, would be [o:f] (orf), I believe. (The reverse change has happened though---words like Austria and caustic are pronounced with short Os, hence /Ostri@/ and /kOstIk/.) I did once hear an Australian with a broader accent say 'gone' as 'gorn' once, and it was commented on! Also, AFAIK (and so says the article you link to), the LOTH-CLOTH split only occurs before voiceless fricatives, but /n/ is not.
:: Saying gone as gorn and off as orf is something that English and American actors do when attempting to imprersonate an Australian, however very few (if any) Australians themselves actually pronounce the words this way. I suspect this has occured because actors when attempting to do an Australian accent actually just do a variation of stage Cockney, which itself features the gorn and orf pronunciations. Then the cliche took hold, and became the standard way to "do" an Aussie accent. MinorEdit 03:52, Jun 27, 2005 (UTC)
:::I know exactly one person who says "Gorn orf". He lives in Adelaide, but came from Queensland. I don't know if it's standard Queensland pronounciation, but it's certainly odd here. --ScottDavis 04:01, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Gone Off

message: ==== verses ====
The article contradicts itself.  At one point it says the following.
...  (bat) has split into two distinct phonemes, so that whereas lad, can (I can do it), bat have a short vowel, bad, can (tin can), rag have a long one.
This implies that  is not an allophone of .  So why do we find the following listed under the heading Allophones?
*"I can open the can"
: → [] or [], [] (SAMPA)
: →  or ,  (IPA)
This implies the exact opposite of the former: that  and  do not correspond to two distinct phonemes but are simply allophones of .
So what's to be done?  Either we count  as a phoneme or we don't.  Though we wouldn't want to contradict other pages of Wikipedia, would we?  We wouldn't, for example, want to contradict the Phonemic differentiation article which counts  as a seperate phoneme in in some varieties of English English and Australian English.  I suggest we delete the bit about "I can open the can". - Jimp  16Mar05
:As far as I can tell the phoneme  consists of two sounds  and . Also as there isn't any minimal pairs for these two sounds in Australian English, they are then considered to be allophones and not separate phenomes. These sounds do have minimal pairs, for example: the noun  and the past-tense verb . I'm not sure if the information on the other page Phonemic differentiation is correct, so I've put a query on its talk page about this problem, and to also check that my knowledge on minimal pairs is correct. Perhaps we need an Australian linguist to help sort this out. – AxSkov (T) 14:28, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes dark l  is an allophone of clear l ([l]) in not only Australian English, but all English dialects that used dark l. I'll remove it from the Consonants section. - Mark 11:20, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Allophones Or Distinct Phonemes?

message: The article contradicts itself.  At one point it says the following.
...  (bat) has split into two distinct phonemes, so that whereas lad, can (I can do it), bat have a short vowel, bad, can (tin can), rag have a long one.
This implies that  is not an allophone of .  So why do we find the following listed under the heading Allophones?
*"I can open the can"
: → [] or [], [] (SAMPA)
: →  or ,  (IPA)
This implies the exact opposite of the former: that  and  do not correspond to two distinct phonemes but are simply allophones of .
So what's to be done?  Either we count  as a phoneme or we don't.  Though we wouldn't want to contradict other pages of Wikipedia, would we?  We wouldn't, for example, want to contradict the Phonemic differentiation article which counts  as a seperate phoneme in in some varieties of English English and Australian English.  I suggest we delete the bit about "I can open the can". - Jimp  16Mar05
:As far as I can tell the phoneme  consists of two sounds  and . Also as there isn't any minimal pairs for these two sounds in Australian English, they are then considered to be allophones and not separate phenomes. These sounds do have minimal pairs, for example: the noun  and the past-tense verb . I'm not sure if the information on the other page Phonemic differentiation is correct, so I've put a query on its talk page about this problem, and to also check that my knowledge on minimal pairs is correct. Perhaps we need an Australian linguist to help sort this out. – AxSkov (T) 14:28, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: {{IPA|[æ]}} verses {{IPA|[æ&#720;]}}

message: These are both listed seperately in the Consonants section implying that they are distinct phonemes.  Is this the case in AusE?  I think not.  Shouldn't this distinction be listed in the Allophone section? Jim 9May05
:Yes dark l  is an allophone of clear l ([l]) in not only Australian English, but all English dialects that used dark l. I'll remove it from the Consonants section. - Mark 11:20, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Clear verses dark l

message: A contributor has just added that for younger Melburnians these words are homophones. I'm not sure that at almost 37 I qualify as a member of the intended group, but for me they certainly are homophones. I grew up in Melbourne but have lived all over the country, currently in Sydney. I have been thinking for some time about phonetics and how in my idiolect "al" and "el" both sound like /æl/ - not the /əl/ mentioned here. — Hippietrail 15:22, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Celery vs Salary

message: The following points have been added to the Phonology section.
*The distinction between  and  in pairs like horse and hoarse, for and four, war and wore, etc. is lost.
*Yod-dropping occurs after the consonants /s/, /z/, /l/, /T/, /r\/, /S/, /dZ/ and /tS/ in suit, Zeus, lute, enthusiasm, rude, chute, June and chew. The word class which is labeled /iw/ in the initial position of ANAE is the reflex of Middle English /iu/, which was derived from a large variety of sources (Jespersen 1949:3.8). 
(1) OE iw as in TiwesdÊg åTuesdayπ
(2) OE e:ow as in e:ow, åyouπ
(3) French iu, as in riule åruleπ
(4) French unstressed e+u, as n seur åsureπ
(5) French u, as in rude,
(6) French. ui, as in fruit
(7) French iv, as in OF sivre -> M.E. sewe, åsueπ
*The distinction between  and  in wine and whine, witch and which, etc. is lost in Australian English.
They are all quite true and valid points but they are true and valid for just about any dialect of English.  There are very few dialects which preserve the distinction between which and witch.  Also very few are the dialects which preserve the distinction between horse and hoarse.  Yod dropping in AusE is identical to that in RP.
If we include a mention of every respect in which AusE differs from each and every other dialect of English, we'll end up with a very long list.  This list won't seem to make sense to the average reader who's never heard of these dialectical features.  It distracts the reader from the point of the article: Australian English (not Scots, Welsh English nor East Anglian).  Moreover, it is simply a duplication of points mentioned in Phonemic differentiation.  
Instead of listing all of these features which are not specific to AusE it would be better to give the link to the article in which they belong: Phonemic differentiation.  I suggest that only the differences between AusE and NZE and RP be mentioned.  NZE, because it's the most similar to AusE and for our close cultural ties.  RP, because it is a well recognised and well understood dialect.
Jimp 4Jun05
203.164.189.46 said, yod dropping does not belong here, alot of Australian don't do the yod dropping. So, does that mean that there are Australians that distinguish soot and suit, loot and lute, rood and rude, choose and chews, Pronounce Zeus as zyoos etc.? I've never heard an Australian talk like that. Smith 5Jun05
: Since so many users of the internet around the world are familar with General American English, I think that should probably also be a point of comparison.
:For what it's worth I've never heard any Australians make "suit" and "soot" sound at all similar. Does any English speaker anywhere do that? The other examples of yod dropping do seem correct though.Grant65 (Talk) 07:28, Jun 5, 2005 (UTC)
Grant,
I'd agree about using General American.  It is very well known.
Smith,
Yes, we drop some yods, you're correct but I still agree with 203.164.189.46 that yod dropping doesn't belong here. The yods we drop are just the same ones as are dropped in almost all dialects of Commonwealth English.  Therefore, I argue, that there's a more appropriate place for details like these.
Jimp 6Jun05
But 203.164.189.46 said that some Australians don't do the yod-dropping. I was wondering if that is true, because all Australians I've heard do the same yod-dropping as I do, except that yods are not dropped after /n/, /t/ and /d/. Conservative RP does have yod-pronouncing after /l/, /s/, /T/ and /z/ in lute, suit, enthusiasm and Zeus, but has the usual yod-dropping after /r/, /dZ/, /tS/, /S/ and /Z/, so conservative RP has less yod-dropping than Australian English, but also less yod-dropping than modern RP. By RP. do you mean modern RP or conservative RP or both? Also commonwealth English is kind of hard to define, because the spelling in Canada is similar to that outside of North American, but the pronunciation is more similar to that in America.
Smith 6Jun05
:I agree with Jimp and 203.164.189.46 that yod dropping doesn't belong here. Perhaps just mention yod dropping as a link only. Yod dropping in Australia is similar to that in Britain, not North America. Many Australians produce what is called yod coalescence where the clusters  and  become  and  respectively, and occur at the beginning or within a word; the clusters  and  become  and  respectively, and only occur within a word, becoming  and  respectively when at the beginning of a word. So Jew and due are homophones. – AxSkov (T) 11:18, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Features which aren't specific to AusE 

message: Someone for some reason has readded to the vowel section that some spakers from South Australia merge pull and pool. Is this true? Frances disagrees. Smith 9Jun05
:There seem to be two versions of that paragraph - I put back the long one yesterday. The two words have the same vowel (I think I put my tongue in the same place), but pull is short, and pool is long. They do not sound the same.
In South Australia, pull and pool are merged in position i.e. the quality distinction is lost, pull is pronounced /pʊl/ and pool is pronounced /pʊːl/, but they're not (usually) pronounced the same contrary to belief by people that hear South Australians pronounce them very similarly and think that they're pronouncing them the same. Pairs like pull/pool, full/fool etc. are distinguished only by length in South Australia.
:The short version says that pull and pool sound the same, which they  do NOT. I'm happy for someone to write a new paragraph that expresses it better. --ScottDavis 03:27, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: In the previous thread on this subject I indicated that I thought that we do merge them here in SA but I've sinced been convinced that I was wrong, so please disregard that comment. Troyac 05:46, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm a Victorian and I pronounce pool as  and pull as  and so do many other Victorians. This is not just a Sth Australian trait, as it also occurs in Victoria, and according to Hippietrail all over the country.  So I have rewritten it to include people not from SA. – AxSkov (T) 10:06, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Swimming Pull 

message: The following has been added to the article.
*Australian English is non-rhotic speech. Since many Australians are of Irish desent, rhoticity is happened in some regional dialects.
How true is this?  Is there any source for it?  Which regional dialects?  I have very strong doubts about this.  However, it is possible.  A similar thing has happened in NZ.
User:Jimp 19Jun05
:If rhoticity is happening at all, which I seriously doubt, it would not be coming from the decendants of Irish immigrants/convicts, but from the influence of American pop-culture. I know a few people of Irish decent (from country areas) who are non-rhotic.  It's not that a similar thing is happening in NZ, but from the populations that are decended from Scottish immigrants, who settled in the rugged southern areas of the South Island (see Dialects within New Zealand English). -- Mark 05:56, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rhoticity 

message: In this survey http://home.unilang.org/main/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6488&start=0&sid=929d60cecee50ded9b6e2a45886c3036 going on a lot of people have written that they make a distinction between the i's in libel and Bible and two of them are Australians. So, here is my question:
Is there a split in the PRICE vowel thats going on in Australian English? If so, into what two vowels?
:I don't believe that there is.  You can't always trust what people write in these internet-forum surveys.  Jimp 11Jul05
:I found some evidence that there might be a split, but in Scotland, not Australia, related to the Scots Vowel Length Rule; it's mentioned on  --JHJ 20:43, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Libel-Bible split 

message: In this dialect survey http://home.unilang.org/main/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6488&start=0&sid=929d60cecee50ded9b6e2a45886c3036, here are two of the Australians responses:
<<Age : 20 
Location where you grew up, or location where you learned English: Australia 
1. Do you distinguish pronunciation between: 
caught and cot Yes 
* Mary, marry, merry Yes 
* draw and drawl Yes 
* card and cord Yes 
* pour and poor No 
* the vowels in father and bother Yes 
* pull and pool Yes 
* wine and whine Yes 
* toon and tune Yes 
* fill and feel Yes 
* fell and fail Yes 
* horse and hoarse No 
* hull and hole Yes 
* new and nu (greek letter)  
* flour and flower Yes 
* hire and higher No 
* loot and lute No 
* rood and rude No 
* choose and chews No 
* you and yew No 
* the first vowel in furry and hurry No 
* the first vowel in mirror and nearer Yes 
* the vowels in bad and lad No 
* the vowels in bit and kit No 
* bred and bread Yes 
* pause and paws No' 
* tenor and tenner No 
* board and bored No 
* pane and pain No 
* toe and tow No 
* sole and soul No 
* meat and meet No 
* rode and road No 
* vain and vein No 
* rap and wrap No 
* The vowels in brute and fruit No 
* The i in libel and the i in Bible Yes 
* The vowels in dimmer and simmer No 
* The vowels in gunner and scunner No 
* not and knot No 
* mews and muse No 
* nome and gnome No 
* roil and royal Yes 
* taut and taught Yes
2. Do the following sentences sound okay to you? (Don't worry about "technically" correct grammar, just tell me if these sound allright in your opinion, or if you use them.) 
* I might could do it tonight. No 
* Do you want to come with? No 
* We stood on line for two hours. No 
* She is in hospital. Yes 
* We seen the movie yesterday. No 
* The car needs cleaned. No 
* We are in five. No 
3. Write the word that you use to refer to these: 
source of water over the sink or tub 
* a carbonated drink soft drink 
* the thing that you drink out of at the park tap 
* center of a peach -- 
* Two or more people group 
* tiny candies put on top of an ice cream cone or cupcake -- 
* the night before Halloween -- 
* small glowing insect visible after dark dragonflies>> 
And
<<Age : 18 
Location where you grew up, or location where you learned English: Australia 
Mine are mostly the same as Raza's except for these: 
1. Do you distinguish pronunciation between: 
* flour and flower no 
* the first vowel in furry and hurry yes 
* bred and bread no 
* taut and taught no 
2. Do the following sentences sound okay to you? (Don't worry about "technically" correct grammar, just tell me if these sound allright in your opinion, or if you use them.) 
* Do you want to come with? Yes(Slang, though it'd be like 'Wanna come with?') 
3. Write the word that you use to refer to these: 
* center of a peach - stone 
* tiny candies put on top of an ice cream cone or cupcake - sprinkles, Hundreds & Thousands>>
Here's my question:
Are these general features of Australians English?
:I would say there's some oddities in them, particularly the first. In particular, I've never heard a normal Australian distinguish wine/whine, flour/flower (I'd be hard pressed to tell how in a non-rhotic accent!), bred/bread (but see other talk posts about that), libel/bible (I have no idea how this might be done), roil/royal or taut/taught (nor this), nor have I heard an Australian not distinguish bad/lad, not doing which sounds Kiwi (if as /bed/, /led/) or British, or furry/hurry. IOW, TMK my English is normal :) I'm a 20 year-old from Victoria, and here's my list of diffs (if different from one, it's included, so all disagreements should be listed. I hope):
:* wine and whine No
:* flour and flower No 
:* the first vowel in furry and hurry Yes
:* the vowels in bad and lad Yes
:* bred and bread No 
:* The i in libel and the i in Bible No 
:* roil and royal No 
:* taut and taught no 
:2. Do the following sentences sound okay to you? (Don't worry about "technically" correct grammar, just tell me if these sound allright in your opinion, or if you use them.) 
:* We are in five. Yes (assuming you mean cinema number, else I have no idea what it means) 
:3. Write the word that you use to refer to these: 
:* source of water over the sink or tub -- tap
:* center of a peach -- stone
:* tiny candies put on top of an ice cream cone or cupcake -- hundreds and thousands, sprinkles
:* small glowing insect visible after dark ? 
:Felix the Cassowary 02:22, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Hmm, there used to be a contrast between 'wine' and 'whine', with the latter having an aspirated 'w'. I think this woud be very rare nowadays. I remember when I was young (1960's) some old people having this contrast on (eg) witch/which. I think it's pretty well gone now, and even when it was around I suspect it was a high-prestige 'correctness' thing and not in common use. - Dougg 01:20, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Features of Australians English in pronunciation and word use