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--></style><title>Fwd from Dan Everett: question about
phonemes</title></head><body>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 15:52:44 +0100<br>
Subject: Fwd: question about phonemes</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>From: Daniel Everett
<dan.everett@man.ac.uk></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Spike could you post this for me? FUNKNET
rejected it because of something in my email program.</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Dan
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Suzette,</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>I don't recall seeing Spike's comment,
though it may just be a function of a quick delete button for letters
from news groups. In any case, I do not know where the data for any
statement of the form 'most linguists do/do not x' would come
from, for any value of 'x', would come from/did come
from.</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Have there been any polls on this? I
don't think so. So that is probably just an off-the-cuff remark of
Spike's. Or am I wrong, Spike?</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>It is true that SPE and generative
phonology in a sense eliminated the notion 'taxonomic phoneme', which
the traditional concept of phoneme was said to be represented by (see
also Postal 1968). But Lexical Phonology restored some luster to the
concept in the notion of the final output of all lexical rules. Here
are some comments from Mohanon (1986)</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>p1: "The principal divergence
between the two approaches (traditional phonemes vs. Gen. Phonology,
DLE) lay in the answer to the question: what are the levels of
representation in phonological theory? The answer that classical
phonemic theory yielded was that there are three levels: phonetic,
phonemic, and morphophonemic. SPE abandoned the intermediate
level..."</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>p6: "Broadly speaking, the classical
phonemic level of representation arose out of the speaker's intuitions
about what he was saying or hearing, or what was significant in it.
This level was meant to capture the speaker's intuitions about which
sounds were the same or different... What classical phonemics failed
to do was to construct a formal theory of representation: the
intuition was right, the theory that followed was inadequate. While
abandoning the classical phonemic theory, SPE also abandoned an
intuitively appealing level of representation in phonological
theory."</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Mohanon and other LP theorists gave
considerable evidence for the linguistic necessity of something like
the classical phoneme, as the output of the lexical rule component.
Moreover, anyone who has been involved in a literacy project has no
doubt come up with their own evidence for native speaker intuitions
about phonemes in the classical/LP sense.</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>There is evidence for classical phonemes,
in fact, from standard phonological rules. For example, one of the
crucial predictions of distinctive feature theory revolves around the
concept of natural class. So of the two rules in (1) and (2), (1), the
distinctive feature approach, is said to be superior because it
(correctly, so the story goes) predicts that aspiration of voiceless
stops will occur in one fell swoop in both L1 acquisition and
diachronic phonological development:</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>(1) [-vd, -cont] --> [+spread
glottis]/X_____ (where x is a stressed syllable,
simplifying)</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>(2)<x-tab>
</x-tab>a. p ---> ph/X___</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite><x-tab> </x-tab>b. t
---> th/X___</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite><x-tab> </x-tab>c. k
---> kh/X___</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>A problem for (1) and the distinctive
feature approach will arise just in case we find examples of children
learning the aspiration of one consonant before the aspiration of
another or historical cases where one consonant undergoes the
aspiration rule prior to another in the history of the language, even
though both belong to the same (relevant) natural class of segments.
Such cases will support the 'taxonomic phoneme' approach over the
distinctive feature approach.</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Another potential source of evidence for
phonemes is the distribution of phonemes in the relevant 'articulatory
space' or, non-technically a 'phoneme chart'.</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>In other words, Suzette, there are so
many possible sources of evidence for phonemes and so many theoretical
approaches to the issue that is very unlikely that Spike is right or
could even be right in principle in making this kind of assertion, if
that is indeed what was intended. (I hasten to say again that I do not
recall seeing Spike's assertion, so I do not want to put words in his
mouth.)</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>-- Dan</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>********************</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Daniel L. Everett</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Professor of Phonetics and
Phonology</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Department of Linguistics</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>University of Manchester</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Manchester, UK</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>M13 9PL<b><x-tab>
</x-tab></b></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Phone: 44-161-275-3158</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Department Fax:
44-161-275-3187</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite>http://ling.man.ac.uk/info/staff/de/</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><b>'Speech is the best show man puts on'
- Whorf</b></blockquote>
</blockquote>
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