Don't touch my phonemes (was: minimal pairs ex: PIE e/o Ablaut)

[Robert Whiting]

On Thu, 2 Nov 2000, David L. White wrote:

<snip>

> For English /th/ vs/ /dh/, the question to ask is something like "In a
> story where two brothers were named "Lith" and "Lidh", would an
> audience be able to keep them apart?"  The answer is clearly yes,
> regardless of the various other consideration that some have noted,
> therefore the distinction is (not surprisingly) phonemic.

No, the answer is:  if there were two brothers named Lith and Lidh then
the distinction would be phonemic.  As long as there aren't, there is
no phonemic distinction.  It doesn't matter that the two sounds are
capable of being distinct phonemes.  Until they are used as phonemes
by the speakers of the language, they aren't phonemes for all that they
are recognizably different sounds.  When speakers start coining unrelated
words where [th] contrasts with [dh] then they will be phonemes.  The
fact that you could coin words where they contrast is not sufficient.

And as you unintentionally point out, when they become phonemes, [dh]
will have to be written <dh>, otherwise you couldn't distinguish between
<Lith> and <Lith>.

Bob Whiting
whiting at cc.helsinki.fi