minimal pairs are not always there

[Dr. John E. McLaughlin]

[Larry Trask]
This is *a* method [finding minimal pairs] of establishing phonemes.  But it
is not *the only* method of establishing phonemes.  If the distribution of
two sounds cannot be stated by rule, then they can't be assigned to a single
phoneme.

[Robert Whiting]
I would say that even a minimal pair is not a sufficient condition to
establish two sounds as separate phonemes.

[Pat Ryan]
I would have to say that you are wrong.  There is no phoneme in any language
which has not been established as a component of a minimal pair.

[Me]
This is not true, Pat, although I'm not ready to throw minimal pairs out
with the bath water as Robert seems to be.  I think that you truly have to
consider teeth/teethe to be a minimal pair.  Historically, yes, these two
forms were not (the 'e' on the end of teethe was a phonetic element which
put the voiceless /th/ in a voicing environment, but synchronically, there
is no distinction between the two except for the final voicing of th/dh (the
lengthening of [i] in 'teethe' is due to the voicing of dh, it does not
cause the voicing).  But there are several good minimal pairs in (at least
American) English for th/dh--ether/either, thigh/thy, wreath/wreathe,
sooth/soothe, etc.

However, because of the very complex morphophonemics of Central Numic and
the historical changes that have further obscured them in Comanche, this
language is full of pairs that look very much like minimal pairs on the
surface, but are not.  For example, [papi] 'head' and [pavi] 'older brother'
look very much like a minimal pair.  However, they represent /pa=pi/ and
/papi/ respectively.  (The = is a phoneme in Comanche that prevents the
lenition of a following stop.  It is fully justified on morphophonemic
grounds without relying on the historical presence of /n/ in Panamint and
Shoshoni which is cognate.)  There are a bundle of these:  [ata] 'different'
/a=ta/ versus [ara] 'uncle' /ata/, etc.

On the issue of requiring minimal pairs, 2Panamint is a good counterexample.
In languages where typical roots are monosyllabic (like English), one may
find many minimal pairs, but even in English, where there are 7392 possible
one syllable words of the structure (C)V(C), there are only 1729 of these
that actually occur in my dialect of English.  For example, the largest
"minimal set" consists of the frame [_ir].  I have 'peer, tier, beer, deer,
gear, cheer, jeer, fear, sear, sheer, hear, veer, mere, near, leer, rear,
we're, year'.  Notice that [kir], [thir], [dhir], [zir], [zhir], [ngir], and
[hwir] do not exist.  There are also no words in my dialect that start with
a [g] and end in a voiceless alveopalatal affricate.  In Panamint, the
typical root structure is CV(X)CV (X is a gemination marker, an /h/, or a
nasal).  The bisyllabic structure of the typical root means that minimal
pairs are far less likely than they are in English.  For example, there is a
minimal pair tykka (y is barred i) 'eat'/nykka 'dance'/-pykka 'suffer' (this
one, however, never occurs without a noun incorporated).  That's the largest
one I've ever been able to find (and -pykka is an iffy inclusion since it
never occurs in isolation).  There's no kykka, kwykka, ?ykka, sykka, hykka,
tsykka, mykka, ngykka, ngwykka, jykka, or wykka.  With all the possibilities
of root structure in Panamint, there just aren't many minimal pairs.  The
phonemic inventory has had to be determined in other, more subtle ways, such
as using permissible initial segments, morphophonemic alternations, etc.

[Robert Whiting]
The distribution by rule takes precedence.  Take the English > minimal pair:
'thigh'  /  'thy'.  Most people would not insist on phonemic status for both
[th] and [dh] in English on the basis of this minimal pair (although some
would doubtless claim that there has been a phonemic split similar to what
occurred with /s/ and /z/).

[Me]
I disagree with Robert on this one.  The evidence for establishing /th/ and
/dh/ as separate phonemes is no worse than that for establishing /zh/, /ng/,
and /oj/ as phonemes (depending on whether or not one considers diphthongs
to be on the same footing as other phonemes in the language).  All phonemes
do not have to be equally common, nor the evidence equally impressive.
Patterns of morphophonemic, environmental, and unpredictability factors all
point toward them being separate phonemes.  While the evidence for
separating /th/ and /dh/ is not as overwhelming as the evidence separating
/s/ and /z/, it is still enough to compel a separation on synchronic
grounds.

[Pat Ryan]
What in Heaven's name is a "voiced environment"? What is environmentally
voiced in 'bathe' as opposed to 'bath'?

[Me]
Robert's referring to a historically "voiced environment".  This is not
appropriate evidence for synchronic phonemicization unless the phonological
or morphophonological rules are still productive.

[Robert Whiting]
Thus it is not only as Larry says "If the distribution of two sounds cannot
be stated by rule, then they can't be assigned to a single phoneme," but
also 'If the distribution of similar sounds can be stated by rule, then they
can't be assigned to separate phonemes.'

[Me]
The distribution of /th/ and /dh/ cannot be determined by the assignment of
a PHONOLOGICAL rule.  There is an archaic MORPHOPHONEMIC rule (make a noun
into a verb by voicing a final /th/), but this is no longer productive,
e.g., 'path'/*'pathe', 'math'/*'mathe'.  Even the intervocalic voicing of
/th/ isn't always productive, e.g., path [th] and paths [dh], but path's
[th].  These two phonemes are NOT predictable, cp. ether/either and
thigh/thy.  No phonological or morphophonological rule can account for these
pairs.  Using semantic criteria ('if it's a pronoun, then') doesn't cut it
in a theoretical sense.

John E. McLaughlin, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
mclasutt at brigham.net

Program Director
Utah State University On-Line Linguistics
http://english.usu.edu/lingnet

English Department
3200 Old Main Hill
Utah State University
Logan, UT  84322-3200

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