dot-calm

[Mark A. Mandel]

        [Mark Mandel:]
##It doesn't take a minimal pair to decide that two phones are different
##phonemes.

        [Joel Berson:]
#Really?  I thought that was the distinction between a phonemic unit and a
#phonetic unit.


Then you'd have to call [h] and [ng] allophones in English, as Y-R Chao
proposed in jest, of a single phoneme he called "heng":

 - They're similar in articulation:
     - /h/ < OldEng /x/, so you could call it an underlying velar.
     - they're both continuants.

 - They're in complementary distribution:
     - /h/ always syll-initial
     - /ng/ always syll-final
   (and so, of course, CANNOT provide any minimal pairs).

And you wouldn't want to do that, now would you?


-- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian,
   Orthoepist, and Philological Busybody
   a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel
   [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.]

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