Suggested transcriptions

syntax

Broad:
Narrow:

picture

Broad:
Narrow:

The Pas

Broad:
Narrow:

pheasant

Broad:
Narrow:

status

Broad:
Narrow:

excitement

Broad:
Narrow:

cello

Transcription:

pronouncement

Broad:
Narrow:

microphone

Broad:
Narrow:

sympathetic

Broad:
Narrow:

galaxy

Broad:
Narrow:

weather

Broad:
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Ottawa

Broad:
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garbage

Broad:
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Pukatawagan

Broad:
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Lac du Bonnet

Broad:
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Sioux Lookout

Broad:
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Charlottetown

Broad:
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Okanagan

Broad:
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therapeutic

Broad:
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Toronto

Broad:
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Qu'appelle

Broad:
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Regina

Transcription:

Vancouver

Broad:
Narrow:

semantics

Broad:
Narrow:

morphology

Broad:
Narrow:

tuba

Broad:
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violin

Transcription:

vinaigrette

Broad:
Narrow:

serious

Transcription:

piranha

Broad:
Narrow:

eighteenth

Broad:
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Dauphin

Broad:
Narrow:

grammarian

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Steinbach

Transcription:

Flin Flon

Transcription:

corporate

Broad:
Narrow:

The initial stop is aspirated. The vowel of the first syllable is like the second-last vowel in laboratory -- between [o] and [], but closer to [].

The final [t] is unreleased and pre-glottalized, that is, a glottal stop is produced immediately before its closure phase begins. Together, these can make the [t]'s place of articulation very difficult to hear.

Having to use two [] segments in the transcription is a little misleading. The tongue tip curls up at the beginning of the first [] and remains curled up through to the end of the second []. In effect, the tongue tip is producing a single, long [] which is interrupted in the middle by a voiceless bilabial stop.

laboratory

Broad:
Narrow:

The second-last syllable has secondary stress, causing its initial stop to be aspirated. The position of the tongue body during the vowel before [] is between [o] and [], though closer to [].

bilingual

Broad:
Narrow:

The initial syllable is a fair bit shorter than it would be if it had primary stress -- so much shorter that the tongue body doesn't have time to reach a very high position by the end of the diphthong. The lower endpoint of the diphthong has been marked with [e], rather than [] or [i], though this is not exact.

negotiate

Broad:
Narrow:

The o of the stressed syllable is fairly diphthongal. The final [t] has no audible release.

During the last two syllables, the vibrations of the vocal cords are low pitched and somewhat irregular. This "creaky voice" has been marked using the tilde diacritic underneath the vowels. (The creaky voice is possibly a variant realization of the glottal stop which often occurs before final voiceless stops.)

steadfast

Transcription:

Both halves of this compound word have some degree of stress (i.e., they are not completely unstressed). stead is more stressed than fast, even though the "listing" intonation contour makes fast higher in pitch.

As it is preceded by an [s], the [t] in the first syllable is unaspirated. The final [t] is released. The [d] in stead is also audibly released. It would not be uncommon in Canadian English for the end of the [d] to overlap the beginning of the [f], though being a fricative rather than a stop the [f] would not cut off the newly-released airflow and so wouldn't necessarily cause [t]'s release to be inaudible. In this utterance, however, the [d] is released before the beginning of the [f].

gullible

Broad:
Narrow:

Both the lateral approximants are velarized (the second one more so than the first). As in skull, this word is pronounced with a [] where many Winnipegers would use a [].

khaki

Broad:
Narrow:

The [k] of the first syllable is aspirated. In this utterance of the word, the second syllable also has a secondary degree of stress and its [k] is also lightly aspirated.

plenary

Broad:
Narrow:

The initial [p] is aspirated. The tongue is already in the position for [l] by the time the [p] is released. Since aspiration is a delay in the onset of voicing after the release of a stop, this means there is a period of time during the [l] when the vocal cords are not vibrating. This is marked here by a voiceless diacritic under the [l]. (A narrow transcription will typically mark aspiration on the consonant or voicelessness on the following approximant, but usually not bother marking both.)

The [n] is pronounced extremely quickly -- with the same very short closure phase and the same kind of "ballistic" motion as we find in ts or ds that are pronounced as taps. This is transcribed here by using the nasalization diacritic over the tap symbol.

skull

Broad:
Narrow:

As we would expect to find after an [s], the [k] is unaspirated. The vowel is a caret, as in general North American English, not a [] as it is in the pronunciation of many younger Winnipegers. The lateral approximant in the coda of the syllable has been velarized.

dinghy

Transcription:

There is a brief oral stop after the velar nasal -- that is, this utterance of dinghy is more like finger than like singer.

General comments

Most of the time, the suggested broad transcription marks only primary stress while the suggested narrow transcription marks both primary and secondary stress.

Many of the narrow transcriptions contain a syllabic consonant. The broad transcriptions for these words will usually have a schwa followed by the consonant -- this is purely for consistency with the early parts of the textbook. The syllabic consonant could also have been used in the broad transcription. By the same token, for those words where there really is a brief vowel between the consonant in the onset and the syllabic consonant, the narrow transcriptions could have tried to record the length and quality of that vowel (and some of them do).