minimal pairs are not always there

[Dr. John E. McLaughlin]

Wow, this debate happened so long ago that I can hardly remember it.
I'm so glad were back on-line.  Thanks Mr. Moderator.

Gabor Sandi wrote (in a long post on the phonemic or not distinction
of English /th/ and /dh/):

> If I analyzed Comanche, I would probably accept the p/v contrast as
> phonemic, even if the contrast existed only intervocally. I don't
> know Comanche, and I would be interested to hear how it borrows
> words from English that begin with p- and v-, respectively.

Comanche always reanalyzes English loans with initial /v/, /f/ or /b/
with an initial /p/.  Thus, Comanche paisee' 'five cents', paare'
/paate'/ 'barley', piic /piitsi/ 'beets' (can't find an example of E
/v/ -> C /p/ right now, but I've seen it before, just can't remember
which word list I saw it in).

John E. McLaughlin, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Linguistics

Program Director
USU On-Line Linguistics
http://english.usu.edu/lingnet

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

(435) 797-2738 (voice)
(435) 797-3797 (FAX)