Return of the minimal pairs

[Larry Trask]

--On Sunday, May 6, 2001 2:29 pm +0300 Robert Whiting
<whiting at cc.helsinki.fi> wrote:

> To make it clear what my statement was about:  My entire point was that
> [T] and [D] do not contrast in initial position in English.  My
> statement was not about whether [T] and [D] are phonemes in English or
> not.  The two are not necessarily related ([T] and [D] can still be
> phonemes even if they don't contrast in some environments).

OK; I'll bite.  I will argue that [T] and [D] *do* contrast in initial
position in English.  It is merely that we happen to have no good minimal
pairs for /T/ and /D/ in the language at present -- a completely different
matter.

To begin with, 'thigh' and 'thy' are a perfect minimal pair, *if* we accept
that 'thy' is a word of modern English -- which you may not want to accept.

But there are a number of near-minimal pairs:

  this / thistle
  they / Thalia (also 'theta' in US accents)
  that / thatch
  these / thesis
  thus / thumb
  though / Thor

The absence of minimal pairs is a historical accident, no more.  I have
come across an actress with the first name 'Thandy'.  I see no reason to
suppose her friends would hesitate to call her 'Than', with /T/, producing
a perfect minimal pair with 'than' (strong form).

The point is not whether minimal pairs exist.  The point is whether the
distribution of [T] and [D] can be stated purely in terms of phonological
environments.  Since no such distributional rule exists, /T/ and /D/
contrast in word-initial position, in spite of the lack of minimal pairs.

The observation that initial [D] occurs only in "grammatical" words and
initial [T] only in "lexical" words is just that: an observation.  It is
not, so far as I can see, a rule of English phonology.  As an observation,
it is on a par with the observation that the diphthong /oi/ never occurs in
native English words, but only in borrowed words.

If we English-speakers had first encountered Greek a couple of millennia
later than we did, is there any reason to suppose that we would shrink from
calling a certain Greek letter 'thelta' -- with /D/ -- instead of 'delta'?
Or from extending this word to the mouth of a river?

By the way, is everybody happy that 'thus' is beyond question a grammatical
word, and not a lexical word?

Take another case.  It is extremely difficult to find minimal pairs for
[esh] and [ezh] in *any* position -- and all the pairs I can think of
involve involve either proper names of foreign origin or obscure Scrabble
words.  Would anybody therefore want to argue that [esh] and [ezh] are not
two distinct phonemes -- just because we have no good minimal pairs, or
just because the second occurs only in words of foreign origin?  If not,
why should theta and eth be treated differently?

Finally, I note that /n/ and [eng] *really* do not contrast in word-initial
position in English, even though they contrast elsewhere.  The case of
theta and eth does not appear to me to be similar.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: (01273)-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: (01273)-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)