2
  • [ɐ] near-open central vowel
  • [ʌ] open-mid back unrounded vowel

Can I use [ʌ] to represent near-open central vowel sound in IPA system?

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    This might seem like a weird question but are you referring to those as pure unalloyed IPA or as English phonemes for the respective standard lexical sets of LOT and STRUT – Mitch Aug 30 '21 at 03:54
  • @Mitch, I am referring to the using of symbol to represent sound in IPA system. – IEatMy Pizza Aug 30 '21 at 04:29
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    The answer is, NO! You can't use [ʌ] to represent a near-open central vowel within the IPA system. Never, not under any circumstances. However, standardised language-specific phonemic transcription systems do not, and CANNOT faithfully use the IPA system. The standardised phonemic transcription system for English uses /ʌ/--note carefully the slanty brackets--to represent the STRUT vowel. The idealised conception of the STRUT vowel is a near-open central vowel. However, note that this is not being used as part of the IPA system, but merely uses a symbol from the IPA system ... – Araucaria - Him Aug 30 '21 at 05:03
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    ... to represent a language-specific phoneme in English. Notice that a phoneme, in some sense, does not actually have a specific sound and cannot be pinpointed in a scientific or exact way, unlike an actually uttered sound, which can be. When using square brackets [ ], this indicates faithful phonetic use of the International IPA system as might be used to compare languages or might be used to compare utterance of the same words or phonemes. Here a near-open central vowel will be represented as [ɐ], and and open-mid back rounded vowel as [ʌ]. – Araucaria - Him Aug 30 '21 at 05:14

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