'natural' wrote:
>Caio: I think [y] in the previous thread refers to the French u
>or German ü, both of which are pure vowels, and not the
>English/Spanish semivowel y. I'm pretty sure no one was claiming
>semivowels as pure vowels. For singing purposes, semivowels are
>consonants.
Now I got what is really going on. I interpreted his [y] as explained in my
2 previous e-mails.
> In particular, as a native speaker of American English, and a
>linguist, I'm positive there's little or no glide in my pronunciation of
"beat," "be," or "beef," >and such glide as there is is either caused by
anticipation of the following
>consonant or by a sort of mimicking of the pitch pattern. In particular
there's no tendency >to glide up to a y at the end, since the main vowel is
already in that position, but rather to
>fall away to an uh, in anticipation of the t in "beat" or the f in "beef".
Hey, but that anticipation you mention is much like what I meant by: 'I
think you have a point, since what does really differentiate a vowel from a
semi-vowel is that the first is the center of the syllable, while the latter
is produced supported by the vowel as a consonant would.I think that is what
does really determine the minute differences in articulation between similar
vowels and semi-vowels.'
> Nevertheless, my "beat" is completely distinct from my "bit."
I opposed 'beat' to 'bit' to make sure what I took as the [i] symbol was
what Alan meant, since in IPA /i:/ represents 'beat' and /I/ 'bit' vowels,
not that elusive ( to me :-)) [i], as far as I'm concerned.
>though there's also a difference in the position and tension of the lips,
which is not >phonemic in itself, but aids in enunciation, and becomes
important in singing those >words, but for tone rather than recognition.
Also, if angry, one might pronounce "bit" with >the lip position of "beat,"
and in so doing sound angry or tense, without affecting the >recognition of
the sound - as long as the tongue is in the right place.
Thank you! For a non-native English teacher ( a.k.a. ME ) that information
is invaluable. BTW, my first singing teacher used to tell me to turn the
/i:/ sound into /I/ when singing higher notes. She said it was impossible to
keep the lips tense for the /i:/ cause you had to open up and round you lips
for those higher notes. I hear that in many pop singers too, though my
previous teacher ( which is not the one cited above ) would keep them
clearly different. Have you ever noticed such thing?
Bye,
Caio Rossi.
|
