This article has made me want to resume my studies into which sounds blend well together. The information is out there, but it is very fragmented and not grouped yet. I've started it, but I never got around to finishing it. What I wanted is to add a feature to my app that suggested the best next word based on the last phoneme of a word. For example, if you had the word "bad" your mouth position would.be ending with the plosive "d". So I wanted to create a database of all the phonemes that are easiest to pronounce based on the last mouth and tongue position for "d". Clearly, there is a sliding scale of which phonemes are easiest to say.
An interesting analysis, well explained, thanks. I would add that language, like culture, is varied, ebbs and flows, moves and stands, is both static and changing. I’m an amateur writer and sometime poet who’s lived in a number of sub-regions of English—accent, period, society—which brings peculiarly specific phenomenon. For example, the Australian accent often has (or used to have) a rising intonation at the end of declarative sentences, which make them sound like questions to others. Also I’m often drawn to older word variations, such as /‘gainst/ instead of /against/, or /ne’er/ instead of /never/, which may be useful for me in personal poetry or prose, but confusing to others. Finally the same word can have multiple pronunciations across time, place and class, which can play havoc with the flow for different readers.
What a fantastic essay. Thank you!
Thank you!
This article has made me want to resume my studies into which sounds blend well together. The information is out there, but it is very fragmented and not grouped yet. I've started it, but I never got around to finishing it. What I wanted is to add a feature to my app that suggested the best next word based on the last phoneme of a word. For example, if you had the word "bad" your mouth position would.be ending with the plosive "d". So I wanted to create a database of all the phonemes that are easiest to pronounce based on the last mouth and tongue position for "d". Clearly, there is a sliding scale of which phonemes are easiest to say.
Now, that would be interesting!
An interesting analysis, well explained, thanks. I would add that language, like culture, is varied, ebbs and flows, moves and stands, is both static and changing. I’m an amateur writer and sometime poet who’s lived in a number of sub-regions of English—accent, period, society—which brings peculiarly specific phenomenon. For example, the Australian accent often has (or used to have) a rising intonation at the end of declarative sentences, which make them sound like questions to others. Also I’m often drawn to older word variations, such as /‘gainst/ instead of /against/, or /ne’er/ instead of /never/, which may be useful for me in personal poetry or prose, but confusing to others. Finally the same word can have multiple pronunciations across time, place and class, which can play havoc with the flow for different readers.