All 40 USA English phonemes (Was Re: Eggcorn? "warn" > "worn")

[Laurence Horn]

At 9:29 AM +0000 2/17/09, Tom Zurinskas wrote:
>I see your point, although a "long e" isn't usually thought of as a schwa.
>
>How about when different pronunciations of a
>word cause changes of meaning, like homonyms,
>e.g. pronouncing "caught" the same as "cot".
>Would that not be a "phonemic" change?  I think
>so.  However, the meaning has not changed, just
>the pronunciation; just the phonemes.
>
>So I prefer the simple original definition of phoneme as a basic speech sound

That's not the (whole) definition of "phoneme",
original or otherwise.  Contrast (or potential
contrast), or capability of making a difference
in meaning, was always part of it, or else
aspirated and unaspirated [p] would be different
phonemes.  Whose definition are you citing here?

>, not getting into "meaning".  The "meaning" of words is a step beyond.

Not in defining phonemes.

>  For example, someone could say "Just great" and mean exactly the opposite.

????

>
>Between "sun" and "sung" I would say there is an
>extra "g" sound there in "sung"; Perhaps
>diminished but surely there, no?

No.

>  And if you put it in a sentence "I've sung a song" the "g" pops out stongly.
>

Not for most English speakers, whence the
shibboleth of "Lung Guy-land" to characterize one
regional dialect where the epenthetic /g/ does
pop up.  Your system would encourage representing
"idea" as containing a final /r/ because it pops
up for certain non-rhotic speakers who say "the
idear of it".  Of course, the pronunciation of
such speakers should be represented with that [r]
in such cases, but I don't think you'd want to
base an orthography on that practice.

LH

>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>----------------------------------------
>>  Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 12:21:24 +0800
>>  From: strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM
>>  Subject: Re: All 40 USA English phonemes (Was Re: Eggcorn? "warn"> "worn")
>>  To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>
>>  ---------------------- Information from the
>>mail header -----------------------
>>  Sender: American Dialect Society
>>  Poster: Randy Alexander
>>  Subject: Re: All 40 USA English phonemes (Was Re: Eggcorn? "warn">
>>  "worn")
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 2:29 AM, Tom Zurinskas wrote:
>>>  My bad. I've guess I must have reversed them.
>>
>>  Good that you're admitting this.
>>
>>>  What amazes me is that folks call these two
>>>n's different phonemes and yet they think
>>>schwa is one phoneme when it is in reality
>>>many.
>>
>>  A phoneme is the smallest unit of speech sound that affects *meaning*
>>  in a word. So /n/ and /ng/ are separate phonemes because "sun" and
>>  "sung" have different meanings.
>>
>>  The different realizations of the schwa don't affect meaning. You can
>>  say "believe" with the first syllable realized as /bee/ or /buh/ or
>>  /bih/, without changing the meaning of the word.
>>
>>  --
>>  Randy Alexander
>>  Jilin City, China
>>  My Manchu studies blog:
>>  http://www.bjshengr.com/manchu
>>
>>  ------------------------------------------------------------
>>  The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>_________________________________________________________________
>Windows Live: Keep your life in sync.
>http://windowslive.com/howitworks?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_t1_allup_howitworks_022009
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org