Return of the minimal pairs (when is a morpheme not a morpheme?)

[proto-language]

Dear Bob and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Whiting" <whiting at cc.helsinki.fi>
Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2001 12:59 PM

<snip>

>> [PCRp]
>> In my experience, /dh/ (dha:l) is never used to represent Arabic emphatic
>> /d./ (d.a:d). They are two separate sounds and letters. Riyadh has dha:l.

[RW]
> No, Riyadh had d.a:d.  Look it up in your Wehr (the root is RWD., not RYD.
> as one might expect).  The symbol "<dh>" identifies a written sequence,
> not a phonetic one and I was fairly specific about indicating that is is
> an English graphic sequence.  The point is that English <dh> is not used
> to indicate Arabic dha:l except in the month names beginning with <Dhu>
> and in <dhal> which is the name of the letter used to write the sound.
> Otherwise, English <dh> in transcriptions frequently represents Arabic
> [d.] the phryngeal ("emphatic") d, while Arabic [D] is usually represented
> by <d> (e.g. dahabeeyah, from the root Dhb "to go back and forth."

[PCR]
Oops! I am so used to indicating the voiced interdental with [dh] that I
thought I remembered **riya:dh when, as you point out, it is riya:D.

I ASSumed.

Sorry for the misinformation.

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
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