Further on "silent" phonemes [was Re: PIE e/o Ablaut]

[Steve Gustafson]

> An example of such a "silent phoneme" that some would invent, in a more
> familiar language, is the French "h aspire'" that prevents liaison in some
> French words, e.g. "le haricot" {l#ariko}, "les haricots2 {leariko}, where
> by the above analogy some would write {ariko} as {=ariko}. That this French
> so-called `=' phoneme is derived from a pronounced {h} sound, is merely old
> history (except in Normandy, where this {h} sound persists, or so I read
> once.) Likewise in standard moderm French, final closed {e} as in "je
> donnai", and final open {e} as in "je donnais", are now separate phonemes,
> whereas they were once likely allophones according to whether or not they
> were followed by a now-vanished final consonant.

My own idiolect of English may contain such a phantom phoneme.  'Whiter' is
to my ear distinguishable from 'wider,' because the diphthong of the
stressed syllable, ordinarily conceived of as /ai/, differs in quality.
Like most North Americans, I have intervocalic /t/ > /d/, in both words.
But the unvoiced /t/ of "whiter" shortens the first element of the diphthong
to something approaching schwa, where "wider" is immune because it always
had a voiced consonant; so they come out /w#ider/ and /waider/,
respectively.

--
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