[Lexicog] new nosey word

[Peter Kirk]

On 11/04/2004 18:01, Mike Maxwell wrote:

> ...
>
> And if there is a phonetic vowel, is there necessarily a phonemic vowel?
> That's an issue of definition, for certain. ...


Yes. But I would certainly analyse English "fire" with a final consonant
/r/ phoneme, and "firing" as the same phonemes with a suffix, although
in my eastern British pronunciation "fire" is phonetically something
like [faɪə], with the /r/ phoneme represented by a schwa. In fact final
r is almost always a schwa in my dialect. An alternative analysis would
be to postulate a multitude of triphthongs in English and morphophonemic
rules to convert them to diphthongs plus /r/ before certain suffixes;
the main arguments against that are Occam's razor and consistency with
other dialects.

--
Peter Kirk
peter at qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk at qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/



------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark
Printer at MyInks.com.  Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US & Canada.
http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511
http://us.click.yahoo.com/mOAaAA/3exGAA/qnsNAA/HKE4lB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->


Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lexicographylist/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
     lexicographylist-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
     http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/