"fission" with -zh-?

[Laurence Horn]

At 7:48 PM -0400 3/15/11, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>At 3/15/2011 04:22 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>>So I've always assumed, as with the shift from penult to ult stress
>>in "covert" on the model of "overt".  Something there is that likes a
>>minimal pair.  (Then there's the pronunciation of "transition" to
>>rhyme with "incision"...)
>
>Larry, what is the minimal pair something likes here?
>
I had in mind "fission" (voiced variant) ['fIZn] vs. "fusion"
['fyuZn] (OK, not precisely minimal, but as minimal as you can get)
and [ko'v at rt] vs. [(?)o'v at rt].  The parenthetical remark wasn't
intended to be another example of a move toward a minimal pair but a
similar instance of voicing shifts under pattern pressure (a.k.a.
analogy).

LH

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