I've noticed that when I say "sleep" the vowel is significantly shorter than when I say "deep". The IPA appears to be iː, but I can't distinguish for which I would use this, and which one I would have to find something else.

It's because you speak US English. In UK English the two vowel sounds are the same.

I assume that vowel quality has not changed, just vowel quantity. I'm also not sure that free variation needs to be marked in broad transcription. You might want to ask on the Linguist List.

If you need to distinguish between half-long and long vowels in IPA, you can use the half-colon (actually the modifier letter half triangular colon in Unicode U+02D1) for the former and the colon (actually the modifier letter triangular colon in Unicode U+02D0) for the later. (In a pinch, interpunct and punctuation colon can stand in.)

sleep ['sliˑp̚]
deep ['diːp̚]

Sleep and deep have exactly the same vowel sound to my ear.

Wordmatic

Same here.

I thought that, but I'll bet they're not, you know.

Although we describe these things as one sound there are various different mouth positions used in making them. This is true of most sounds. The sound is affected by the sound of the previous letter and the position that it leaves the mouth in. Try this experiment.

Start to say the word "sleep" but instead of puting a "p" on the end just extend the vowel sound

"sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee..."

Now do the same with

"deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee..."

For me, my tongue is in a different position causing the second to have a deeper , more "throaty" vocalisation. There is a qualititive difference to the vowel.

Well, possibly in the Black Country...

No, not in the Black Country. Everywhere. It's part of what's called assimilation which is the change in a sound due to the influence of a neighbouring sound. If you speak at all then assimilation (which has nothing to do with the Borg, if you unless you are captain of the Starship Enterprise) happens to your speech too. It is as inevitable as the sun rising. It has to do with the way sounds are articulated. They are not made as a series of discrete phonemes but as a continuous stream of sound and every sound you make is influenced by the position of your lips, tongue, cheeks etc at the start of it and hence at the end of the previous sound.

The sounds "sl" and "d" are articulated completely differently and therefore "sleep" and "deep" have different realisations of the "ee" sound which is therefore slightly different.

The sounds "sl" and "d" are articulated completely differently and therefore "sleep" and "deep" have different realisations of the "ee" sound which is therefore slightly different.

But gooofy's post seemed to imply that it's the vowel quantity (length) that is affected for him (instead of? or despite? the slight difference in vowel quality).

It did. I was responding to Richard. The vowel length may well vary from accent/dialect to accent/dialect but is rather more under the control of the speaker than vowel quality due to assimilation. For me I can detect a distinct change in quality but no change in quantity. I'd bet that for most speakers the sleeeeeee/deeeeee experiment I proposed would result in subtly different sounds and i they were recorded and the opening sound truncated then playing them back would be noticably different. (With all that said if I "put on" a home counties accent the difference, though still present, is less marked but only at the expense of making a deliberate effort to rearticulate the sound.

I have noticed over at OEDILF a tendency to make rhymes like sleep/trip which often pass by the US workshoppers without comment although to me this definitely isn't a rhyme. This demonstrates that there is a change in the vowel length for some speakers.

There also appears to be a widely held view that cot/caught are homophones which is most definitely NOT the case in most UK accents.

Actually what this discussion does, is demonstrate my long held belief that the IPA table that is printed in the front of a dictionary and that was taught on my recent Cert Ed course (to those students that didn't already know it) is, on its own, rather flawed. It's no use assigning an IPA symbol to a sound and giving examples of words using that sound in print.

/i:/ as in see, sleep, magazine

means nothing unless I know how the person writing the guide pronounces those words.

A completely meaningful guide could only be produced by matching the symbol (on a chart) to a sound (on a tape).

a tendency to make rhymes like sleep/trip which often pass by the US workshoppers without comment

Other than Scots English, I am not aware of any English dialect where vowel quantity is phonemic. Having said that, yes, /i:/ and /I/ differ narrowly in length, but they also differ in articulation. I am not really aware of a US dialect where /i:/ and /I/ have collapsed into one sound.

Some information on high front vowel mergers.

There also appears to be a widely held view that cot/caught are homophones which is most definitely NOT the case in most UK accents.

I still preserve the distinction in vowel quality in cot and caught. More on the cot-caught merger.

A completely meaningful guide could only be produced by matching the symbol (on a chart) to a sound (on a tape).

Yes, I agree. The IPA website points at the University of Victoria which has an extensive sound lab online. The late Professor Ladefoged has sounds on his website, too.

quote:

Originally posted by zmježd:
I still preserve the distinction in vowel quality in cot and caught. More on the cot-caught merger.

Intersting links zm. I've bookmarked them to read in depth later. As the cot/caught merger seems to be regional within the US I was wondering where exactly you are from and whether your separation of these sounds is typical or atypical in your region.

I was certain I'd seen sleep rhymed with trip over there but I've investigated and although there are lots of limericks with sleep in a rhyming position they all have proper rhymes for it. I must have seen it somewhere else. I've certainly heard "sleep" prononced (on TV) with a much shorter vowel than I use, though.

As the cot/caught merger seems to be regional within the US I was wondering where exactly you are from and whether your separation of these sounds is typical or atypical in your region.

I was born in Sonoma County, California, in the '50s. Everybody on both sides of my family, who spoke English natively, made the same distinction. Sonoma is a coastal county north of San Francisco (which is excluded from the merger by the article). My wife, who is from Napa County, just to the east of Sonoma County (part of the North Bay region), also makes the distinction.

If anybody else is interested in phonetics or phonology, here's an online lecture at the Unviversity of Pennsylvania.

quote:

The sounds "sl" and "d" are articulated completely differently and therefore "sleep" and "deep" have different realisations of the "ee" sound which is therefore slightly different.

I still contend that this is not the case for me. Mind you, I have a genuine Home Counties accent - not one I effect - and so the lack of distinction you speak of will apply.

Oh, and I did try your deeeeeep sleeeeep experiment, although I've not yet recorded myself, so I am hearing myself partly through bone-conduction, an accepted deceiver.

I've found that if I am reading poetry aloud, I say the vowels exactly the same. I don't ever recall hearing anyone rhyme "trip" with "sleep", or "cot" with "caught".

Thinking about it some more, I think that assimilation is responsible for the difference, and thus perhaps doesn't need to be quantified in IPA.

Cot and caught are true homophones in many US dialects. The pronunciation is somewhere between the two vowel sounds as they are commonly heard in the UK.

A few examples of the cot/caught merger from the OEDILF. For me NONE of these rhyme but I am certain that they rhyme for their authors.


http://www.oedilf.com/db/Lim.php?Word=Adriel

http://www.oedilf.com/db/Lim.php?Word=Actaeon

http://www.oedilf.com/db/Lim.php?Word=absentmindedness

http://www.oedilf.com/db/Lim.php?Word=alquifou

http://www.oedilf.com/db/Lim.php?Word=Bardesanist

http://www.oedilf.com/db/Lim.php?Word=Achsah

For me NONE of these rhyme but I am certain that they rhyme for their authors.

I remember reading once, that Chaucer was not considered a very good poet in the early modern English (i.e., Tudor and Elizabethan) period, because he got his rhymes and meters wrong. Of course, Middle English is separated from Modern English by the Great Vowel Shift, and many words changed numbers of syllable owing to endings fading away and such. It took a while to appreciate Chaucer in the language he had written in.

I am from the American Midwest (Ohio)and now live in the Eastern mid-Atlantic region. I did the sleeeeee/deeeeee experiment and my tongue did not budge or shift. I say "cot" to rhyme with "rot" and "robot", and "caught" to rhyme with "ought" and "wrought." Back in the '60s and '70s, I lived in Upstate New York for about 10 years, where they pronounce "cot" and "caught" the same. They also say "Bahb, Jahn and Tahm" for "Bob, John and Tom."

Wordmatic

quote:

Originally posted by zmježd:
The sounds "sl" and "d" are articulated completely differently and therefore "sleep" and "deep" have different realisations of the "ee" sound which is therefore slightly different.

But gooofy's post seemed to imply that it's the vowel quantity (length) that is affected for him (instead of? or despite? the slight difference in vowel quality).

I said no such thing. I think you mean Seanahan?

In my speech, the vowels in "sleep" and "deep" are of the same quality and length.

I think you mean Seanahan?

Sorry about that. My mistake. But Seanahan's post seemed to imply that it's the vowel quantity (length) that is affected for him (instead of? or despite? the slight difference in vowel quality).

quote:

Originally posted by BobHale:
The sounds "sl" and "d" are articulated completely differently and therefore "sleep" and "deep" have different realisations of the "ee" sound which is therefore slightly different.

Both /l/ and /d/ are produced at the alveolar ridge. The only difference between them is that one is a lateral, and one is a plosive. Since the tongue is in the same position for both, I'm not sure why the vowel quality would be different.

quote:

Originally posted by Seanahan:
I've noticed that when I say "sleep" the vowel is significantly shorter than when I say "deep".

Vowel length can be changed by the following consonant, but the consonant is the same in both of these words. So I don't see what would make the vowel length different.

I'm not saying that Bob and Seanahan are wrong. I'm saying that this sounds very interesting and I'd like to see some spectrograms of their speech.

I'm not saying that Bob and Seanahan are wrong. I'm saying that this sounds very interesting and I'd like to see some spectrograms of their speech.

If Bob and Seanahan could record themselves saying deep sleep it ought to be easy enough to do the spectrograms. (Cf., for instance, Praat website; I also believe that some of the open source audio rippers do spectral analysis.)

[Fixed typo.]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: zmježd,

My...this thread has grown!

Bob, as Wordmatic says, my tongue budges not an inch with "deep" and "sleep." Further, I do not rhyme "cot" with "caught" nor "trip" with "sleep," and those rhymes would never get past me on OEDILF.

I have often been suspicious of OEDILFers who insist words, that aren't close to rhyming, do in their accent or that they say something with an obvious 3 syllables with only 1 syllable in their accent. I often think they just want to get their limerick accepted.

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:
My...this thread has grown!

Oh My...this thread has grown!
And much hot air has blown
through puffs so warm
to make one yawn:
a deep sleep, cause unknown.

Anon

through puffs so warm
to make one yawn:

Sorry to bother you, sir, your honour. Does warm and yawn actually rhyme in your dialect?

quote:

Sorry to bother you, sir, your honour. Does warm and yawn actually rhyme in your dialect?

Not in Yorkshire, I'll be bound - but we don't know for sure whether this is where Albert Non came from...

we don't know for sure whether this is where Albert Non came from

Ah, I see. I was confused, because I thought a little bird wrote it.

I am a bit confused...

I have found that there are the perfectionist rhymers, and then those (like me) who think it is okay to be close. I suspect the "yawn" and "warm" are similar sounding to the English because I think they would be to our Easterners. There's always the "n" and "m" problem, of course.

quote:

There's always the "n" and "m" problem, of course.

That is the reason why they don't rhyme for me; the vowel sounds are identical.

That is the reason why they don't rhyme for me; the vowel sounds are identical.

Ah, assonance.

quote:

Originally posted by zmježd:
through puffs so warm
to make one yawn:

Sorry to bother you, sir, your honour. Does warm and yawn actually rhyme in your dialect?

Sir is not necessary, especially if intended to be sacrcastic. And No, yawn does not rhyme with warm in my dialect or any other in the UK of which I know.
But I'm still yawning.

But I'm still yawning.

Don't worry. As you get older, you will require less sleep.

quote:

Originally posted by zmježd:
But I'm still yawning.

Don't worry. As you get older, you will require less sleep.

Thanks for the reassurance. I noticed that many years ago.

Thanks for the reassurance.

You're welcome.

I noticed that many years ago.

My mistake; you seem so young at heart.