[General] Pronunciation of "saw and bought"

[bhaisahab]

Originally Posted by BobK

Isn't my question clear? There may be British speakers who pronounce the vowel of 'thaw' differently from the vowel in 'thought'; but in 58 years living in the UK I haven't heard such a person. The vowel phoneme in each of those words is /ɔ:/.

b

I am 59 and spent the first 39 years of my life in the UK, and I agree with you Bob.

[PROESL]

Originally Posted by BobK

Isn't my question clear? There may be British speakers who pronounce the vowel of 'thaw' differently from the vowel in 'thought'; but in 58 years living in the UK I haven't heard such a person. The vowel phoneme in each of those words is /ɔ:/.

b

I understand what you mean now. Thank you.

[ayad00]

Originally Posted by PROESL

I've gone back and taken a look at the posts. My confusion came when I read a post referring to "saw", but not "bought". As the OP asked about "saw" and "bought" together, it seemed that "saw" was being treated separately from "bought". That's why I asked. I've made no assumptions. I find it difficult to consider asking for clarification a waste of time.

yes

I asked about "saw" and "bought" together and why their Pronunciation is different with other English words like "sort" ,"thought" and "walk"
I know their Pronunciation is the same but why their phonetic different with their Pronunciation : bought /bɔ:t/ and saw /sɔ:/

[PROESL]

Originally Posted by ayad00

yes

I asked about "saw" and "bought" together and why their Pronunciation is different with other English words like "sort" ,"thought" and "walk"

I know their Pronunciation is the same but why their phonetic different with their Pronunciation : bought /bɔ:t/ and saw /sɔ:/

That's a good question. To me, the vowel sound in "walk" is the same as "bought" and "saw". In the American Heritage Dictionary and in Merriam-Webster's Dictionary, the vowel sound in "walk" is the same as "bought" and "saw". I think, if I recall correctly, you posted that you looked in the Oxford Dictionary. As a previous poster pointed out, the American Heritage Dictionary and Merriam-Websters' Dictionary do not use standard IPA script. However, in these American English dictionaries, all three words are shown to have the same vowel sound. Why this would be different in another dictionary, I don't know. I could only attribute this to a difference between British English and American English.

Answers.com - Online Dictionary, Encyclopedia and much more

Dictionary: walk (wôk)

Dictionary: bought (bôt)

Dictionary: saw1 (sô)

Dictionary: thought (thôt)

Dictionary: sort (sôrt) - The word "sort" is shown as having the same vowel sound as the rest of these words. However, the vowel sound in "sort", to me, is not quite the same because of how it combines with "r" to form the "or" sound in the middle of a word.

walk - Definition from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

[ayad00]

Thanks PROESL it was very useful