minimal pairs (was: PIE e/o Ablaut)

[Ross Clark]

>>> Robert Whiting <whiting at cc.helsinki.fi> 04/14 6:38 PM >>>

On Fri, 07 Apr, Ross Clark <r.clark at auckland.ac.nz> wrote:

At 09:00 PM 3/30/00 +0300, Robert Whiting wrote:

>>> 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 phomemic split
>>> similar to what occurred with /s/ and /z/).  This is because
>>> otherwise the sounds are in complementary distribution, [dh]
>>> occuring in voiced environments and in deictic words and
>>> pronouns, [th] otherwise.

[and I wrote]

>> I am astonished that this discussion has proceeded for several
>> days without anyone questioning the original statement about
>> complementary distribution of [th] and [dh] in modern English,
>> which is simply incorrect. Even if one does not have the
>> pronunciation which makes "either" and "ether" a minimal pair,
>> examples of [th] in voiced environments are not at all hard to
>> find: pathology, authority, anathema, mathematics, Gothic,
>> Arthur, etc etc.

[to which Robert Whiting replied]

> And I am astonished that anyone would present a list of
> loanwords, however long, and claim that it has some bearing on
> native English phonology.  Loan words do not necessarily follow
> the phonological rules of the borrowing language.  In fact this
> is usually one of the first clues that a word is a loan when it
> doesn't obey the phonological rules.  This is how you can tell
> that 'father' is a native (inherited) word and 'padre' is a loan.

> I'm sorry if you got confused, but I thought it was clear that I
> was speaking about native English words, not borrowings.  Perhaps
> I should have been explicit, but I really thought that everyone
> knows that when you are trying to establish the phonology of a
> language you should deal with words that are native to that
> language.  I'm surprised that you didn't include 'Athens' in your
> list.  You can make a list of hundreds of words in English that
> have [th] in voiced environments and every one of them will be a
> loan.  There are a very few examples where the complementary
> distribution of [th] and [dh] does break down, but you haven't
> mentioned any of them.

[to which I reply]

I trust that we share the assumptions that (i) we are talking about the
synchronic phonology of modern English, and (ii) the reality that we are
trying to get at is what is in speakers' heads.

The rest of your post is entirely dependent on the further assumption that
native speakers of modern English (in general, not just linguists) distinguish
"foreign" from "native" words, and that the words I listed with /th/ in voiced
environments are marked as "foreign". Since I don't share this assumption, I
would like to know what evidence leads you to it. Do you have any such
evidence, other than the fact that by excluding these hundreds of words you
can arrive at a nice phonological generalization?

Ross Clark