. . . alibis . . . appetite . . . rather . . . Mark . . .
The first two a’s are different in their phonetic symbols in the dictionaries from the other two, but I can’t differentiate. What’s the difference between /ӕ/ and /ɑ/?
Learn English – What’s the difference between /ӕ/ and /ɑ/
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Related Solutions
An /ɝ/ is just the stressed version of an /ɚ/. For example, murder has both of them in it, being normally written as /ˈmɝdɚ/. Both of those are “r-colored” vowels. However, some transcribers prefer to represent that as /ˈmɜɹdəɹ/ instead, writing a consonant instead of little rhotic hook. Those represent the same pronunciation.
Your mother is therefore going to be either your /ˈmʌðɚ/ or your /ˈmʌðəɹ/. You need to understand though that /ɚ/ and /əɹ/ are just two ways of writing the same thing — at least in words like murder and mother. When you can get into words like murdering or mothering, then you cannot use the r-colored version for the one before the -ing, since it now has a vowel after it and so much be written as a consonant.
There are advantages and disadvantages to doing it one way or the other. Using a consonant instead of a diacritic can be easier to understand, since you don’t have to think about whether it has a consonant following it and so counts as a rhotacized vowel, or whether it has a vowel following it and so counts as a consonant.
- mirth:
/ˈmɝθ/or/ˈmɜɹθ/ - mother:
/ˈmʌðɚ/or/ˈmʌðəɹ/ - mothering:
/ˈmʌðəɹɪŋ/ - murder:
/ˈmɝdɚ/or/ˈmɜɹdəɹ/ - murdered:
/ˈmɝdɚd/or/ˈmɜɹdəɹd/ - murderous:
/ˈmɝdəɹəs/or/ˈmɜɹdəɹəs/ - murderer:
/ˈmɝdɚɚ/or/ˈmɜɹdəɹəɹ/
Another issue is that IPA doesn’t have special precomposed characters for other rhotacized vowels, so you have to build the others yourself, which means they don’t look like the precomposed ones:
- Mordor:
/ˈmo˞do˞/or/ˈmoɹdoɹ/ - corner:
/ˈko˞nɚ/or/ˈkoɹnəɹ/ - harder:
/ˈhɑ˞dɚ/or/ˈhɑɹdəɹ/ - radar:
/ˈɹeɪdɑ˞/or/ˈɹeɪdɑɹ/ - carport:
/ˈkɑ˞po˞t/or/ˈkɑɹpoɹt/ - rarer:
/ˈɹeɪɹɚ/or/ˈɹeɪɹəɹ/ - creature:
/ˈkɹitʃɚ/or/ˈkɹitʃəɹ/ - entrepreneur:
/ˌɔntɹəpɹəˈnɚ/or/ˌɔntɹəpɹəˈnɜɹ/ - entrepreneurial:
/ˌɔntɹəpɹəˈnʊɹiəl/
If you are doing phonemic transcriptions, you might consider just sticking with /r/ and not worrying about all the various phonetic realizations possible for
it, including [ɝ], [ɚ], [ɹ], [ɻʷ], and all the rest.
As for trying to identify difference between the several Canadian accents and the many American ones, when it comes to your r’s, this mostly depends on whether you are comparing rhotic dialects with non-rhotic ones. Note also that the standard versions of both sets are rhotic. That means your mother is still going to be the same wherever you are, and that you don’t need to worry about it. The mother of Vancouver is the same as the one from San José.
You haven’t said whether your first language is some variety of English, or whether it is something else. If it is something else, especially one without the sorts of rhotics that occur in North America, then simply mastering those alone will be much harder, and much more important, than trying to tease out one or another difference between this or that American or Canadian accent.
For Cambridge Dictionaries Online, at least, part of the answer may be to do with syllabification. First note that the transcriptions are phonological, as indicated by the slashes //, not phonetic, which would be indicated by square brackets []. That means that the phonetic realization might be identical even if the phonological representation is different (for any given speaker).
The generalization seems to be that the sound is represented as a /j/ if it is in the onset of a syllable, but as /i/ elsewhere. For instance:
- pantheon: /ˈpæn.θi.ən/
- grammarian: /ɡrəˈmeə.ri.ən/
- Paralympian: /ˌpær.əˈlɪm.pi.ən/
vs.
- Italian: /ɪˈtæl.jən/ (with /-i.ən/ given as an alternative)
- minion: /ˈmɪn.jən/
- onion: /ˈʌn.jən/
and
- galleon: /ˈɡæl.i.ən/
- bullion: /ˈbʊl.i.ən/
- Euclidean: /juˈklɪd.i.ən/
- Syrian: /ˈsɪr.i.ən/
In the first set of words, the sound is not in the onset of the syllable, but in its nucleus. In English syllabification, the nucleus must be vocalic. In the second set, the sound is in the onset. Since in English syllable onsets must be consonantal, it has to be represented as /j/. In the third set, the /i/ is in a syllable on its own, and hence is the nucleus of the syllable.
Words with only one consonant before the /i/ or /j/ can be divided into either two syllables or three (as /ɪˈtæl.jən/ vs. /ɪˈtæl.i.ən/ shows). Words with two consonants before the sound can only be divided into three syllables with /i/ as nucleus, since English syllabification prefers to balance consonants across syllables in certain ways. So /ˈpænθ.jən/ is not a well-formed syllabification.
As for whether there is a genuine contrast between champion and million, I think there may be in some instances. I can pronounce the latter either as /ˈmɪl.i.ən/, with three syllables, or as /ˈmɪl.jən/, with two, but /ˈtʃæmp.jən/ just sounds wrong to me. YMMV, though.
Best Answer
I think the problem is to do with the accents represented in the audio source.
The vowel in appetite might be better represented as /a/ rather than /ӕ/. This is the value of the TRAP vowel in many younger RP speakers.
The person who says Mark sounds as if she is a Northern English speaker. Northern English speakers often lack the back /ɑ/ vowel, and they also tend not to lengthen their vowels as much as Southern English or RP speakers. I would say that the vowel there is [aː] rather than [ɑː], and not a very long [aː] at that.
I'm not surprised that you can't hear the difference very clearly. Dictionaries which try to represent British pronunciation use RP (Received Pronunciation). Unfortunately they do not attempt to capture other British accents. Some dictionaries are changing the way they are representing the short vowel, using /a/ instead of /ӕ/. (The Oxford English Dictionary is moving in that direction for British pronunciations.)