Why incomplete subscript/superscript alphabet ?

[Hans Åberg]

> On 10 Oct 2016, at 21:42, Doug Ewell <doug at ewellic.org> wrote:
> 
> Hans Åberg wrote:
> 
>> I think that IPA might be designed for broad phonetic transcriptions
>> [1], with a requirement to distinguish phonemes within each given
>> language.
> 
> From the Wikipedia article you cited:
> 
> "For example, one particular pronunciation of the English word little
> may be transcribed using the IPA as /ˈlɪtəl/ or [ˈlɪɾɫ̩]; the
> broad, phonemic transcription, placed between slashes, indicates merely
> that the word ends with phoneme /l/, but the narrow, allophonic
> transcription, placed between square brackets, indicates that this final
> /l/ ([ɫ]) is dark (velarized)."
> 
> IPA can be used pretty much as broadly or as narrowly as one wishes.

Within each language, but is not designed to capture differences between different languages or dialects.