Talk:Open-mid back rounded vowel

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i'm no expert but i don't think rp applies this vowel sound to the word "ball". it's more like a closed o for ball

I'm an RP speaker and I can vouch for the description being correct. 213.249.135.36 17:39, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Korean example please

From what I know of Korean, the vowel 어 is a perfect example of the ɔ vowel. Could someone of greater authority corroborate my statement by adding an example to the table of occurrences? MJ 01:23, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

According to the vowel chart at Korean language, neither short, nor long /o/ is open-mid. I did add examples that you can check out at Close-mid back rounded vowel per your request. Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 05:22, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you; I was afraid that would be the result. My experience is admittedly limited, but it is with native speakers teaching me the sounds and spelling. Especially noting the last point in the current ʌ article, about how /ʌ/ in RP has shifted forward to [ɐ], in my opinion the consistent use of /ʌ/ at Korean_language is quite inaccurate. The 어 I have always heard does not match [ʌ] as in ‘but’; it is [ɔ] as in ‘bought’, exactly like the inherent vowel in Bengali, also taught to me by native speakers. This discussion probably belongs at Talk:Korean_language but I wanted to get some informed opinion here first. Perhaps there is academic precedent of transliterating 어 as /ʌ/ in direct IPA transcription of Korean, but I suspect it is the result of intermediation in English, e.g. 선 is most often transliterated “sun” (easier to typeset than “sŏn” and close enough for most English speakers) but really pronounced [sʰɔn̪]). MJ 18:23, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm a native speaker of RP and Seoul Korean, and I can tell you for certain that 어 is not rounded. --Kjoonlee 18:32, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] August, log, etc.

Is this the vowel sound that most speakers of General American (or something similar) use in log, nog, August, dog, frog, soggy, etc.? If so, then I think these would be better examples than "ball". The dark l occuring after the sound in that word makes the sound itself kind of unclear in my opinion. 208.104.45.20 (talk) 03:52, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely true. The dark L is known for screwing up the sound of the preceding vowel; indeed, sometimes /ɛl/ becomes [æɫ], /æl/ becomes [aɫ], /ɑl/ becomes [ɒɫ], /aɪl/ becomes [aɪəɫ], etc.; more extreme examples are to be found in regional accents. I have /ɔ/ in all of the words you mentioned except nog. Speakers of English English have /ɔ/ in August only, as the spelling suggests. Jack(Lumber) 15:26, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

That's interesting. So I'm assuming that speakers of English English have [ɒ] in the other words I listed besides August. I've noticed that as a general rule, if a particular word has the letter o in it, and if I, as a speaker of something close to General American, pronounce that o as [ɑ] or [ɔ], then speakers of English English will pronounce that same o as [ɒ]. I don't know if this is always true, but it seems to be. I think I have [ɔ] in every single one of the words I mentioned. I also think I have it in prom. Though I'm not sure because I'm am confused on what [ɔ] is supposed to sound like. Some Wikipedia articles I have read make it seem as if [ɔ] never occurs in dialects with the cot-caught merger. I have a cot-caught merger. I don't think this is true. What they are forgetting is that even those dialects maintain [ɔ] in words like the ones I mentioned. So what if it is only in a few words; we still have that sound. I have observed that some young people in the South pronounce dog differently from the way I pronounce it. This confuses me because I know I'm not from the region of the country that has any features of the NCVS, and I also know that Southerners know how to pronounce [ɔ] seeing as how they have that sound in many words, so I don't see how we could possibly pronounce dog differently from one another. I think the difference is in vowel length. I think many Southerners pronounce it as [dɔːg], while I pronounce it as [dɔg]. This is strange, because I didn't think vowel length mattered so much in American English. Anyway, that's about enough rambling for me. 208.104.45.20 (talk) 02:31, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

So I guess it's my turn now:) As usual, we have to distinguish between /phonology/ and [phonetics].
For U.S. speakers without the cot-caught merger:
RP /ɒ/ usually maps to either USEng /ɑ/ or USEng /ɔ/; in fact, RP /ɒ/ usually corresponds to USEng /ɑ/ except:
  • when orthographic o is followed by /f/ (e.g. off), /s/ (cross), /θ/ (cloth) (the voiceless fricatives), and /ŋ/ (long);
  • for many speakers, when orthographic o is followed by /g/; some speakers may have /ɑ/ in bog but not in dog /dɔg/;
  • usually, in the word gone;
  • often, in the word chocolate;
  • away from the North and New York City, in the word on.
Many USEng speakers have /ɔ/ in want; some have it in watch as well.
This intricate pattern is the result of the lot-cloth split, a variant of which also occurred in England a long time ago. However, contemporary RP doesn't have this split; I can't think of a single orthographic o that is pronounced /ɔː/ in RP.
In some cases, the reverse correspondence is found; for example, daughter and water may or may not rhyme in USEng, whereas they always rhyme in England, where they have /ɔː/.
(And then, of course, there are further complications; for instance, wrath rhymes with cloth in England...)
If you have the cot-caught merger, you lack the phoneme /ɔ/. This doesn't mean you lack the phone [ɔ]. For cc-merged speakers, doll rhymes with mall, and hall rhymes with Taj Mahal. Some of these speakers pronounce these words with either [ɔ] or [ɒ]; the same speakers may realize, say, wash as [wɑʃ] and long as [ɫɒŋ]. In other words, the phoneme /ɑ/ (in the inventory of cc-merged speakers) is made up of several different allophones--this is especially noticeable in Canadian English, as we saw some time ago.
Sometimes, a phoneme may have allophones that are fairly "distant" from one another. In California, for example, /æ/ may be [ɪə] in man but [a] in, well, California.
Now, if you have [ɔ] in dog, August, log, as well as (egg)nog, but [ɑ] in, say, hot and block, this means that you don't allow the sound [ɑ] to be followed by [g]--and you can still be cc-merged. But if you have different vowels in flog and log, or hall and Taj Mahal, then those vowels contrast in identical environments, and therefore constitute different phonemes--in other word, the cc-merger is not complete for you.
Historically, /ɔ/ is a "long" vowel; in RP, it is somewhat longer, higher, and more rounded than it is in General American. In NYC, it may even be diphthongal (long, walk, coffee...) Granted, a short vowel does not necessarily have duration as its chief distinguishing feature (Merriam-Webster); however, even if we transcribe the kit vowel as /ɪ/ and the face vowel as /e/, we cannot ignore that the latter is noticeably longer. Jack(Lumber) 20:11, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

This is much more complicated than I thought. 208.104.45.20 (talk) 21:56, 27 February 2008 (UTC)