<div dir="ltr"><div>Hi All,</div><div><br></div><div>Isn't a way of dealing with this to provide frequency counts, for example in a list of phonemes or phonotactic patterns, how often do they occur in a given corpus. That would indicate which are the rara. <br></div><div><br></div><div>Nick<br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, 6 Dec 2021 at 21:06, Volker Gast <<a href="mailto:volker.gast@uni-jena.de">volker.gast@uni-jena.de</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div>
<p>As for /ʒ/ in English, I think you have to distinguish between
(i) its use in relatively recent loans, e.g. 'rouge', and 'garage'
(UK pronunciation), where I would assume that it still has a
foreign ring, and (ii) its (media)l use in older loans like
'measure' and 'pleasure', where it is probably felt to be native.
The latter sound only occurs before unstressed syllables, as far
as I know, at least in standard British English. In front of
stressed syllables /zj/ has been preserved, e.g. 'presume'. In
other words, the opposition between /ʒ/ and /zj/ is not
distinctive. Note also that in initial position, /ʒ/ is regularly
turned into an affricate in loan words, e.g. 'journey', which
points to a non-native status. It has been preserved in others,
e.g. 'gigue', but here again I would assume that most speakers of
English would clearly identify this word as a French loan.<br>
</p>
<p>So I think it would not be entirely unreasonable to say that /ʒ/
is not a "fully" native sound of English. Occurrences of /zj/ in
medial position could be explained via some phonological rule,
with an underlying /zj/-sequence. I am of course aware that most
phonemes in most languages differ in terms of their degrees of
"distributional generality", and /ʒ/ nicely fills a gap in the
grid of English fricatives. But that's probably an argument that
we shouldn't use.</p>
<p>Best,<br>
Volker<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<div>On 12/6/21 08:34, fcosw5 wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>If it's feasible, I think I would recommend a fairly
fine-grained inventory, in which all the phonemes actually used
in the relevant language are included, but special note taken of
those phonemes that occur *only* in loan-words. And, going
beyond that, maybe make further note of loan-words that are
*generally recognized* within the community as loan-words (e.g.,
I think most native-English-speakers would not recognize
'measure' as a loan-word), and if the introduction of such a
xenophone has had a noticeable effect on the language's
phonological inventory.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Best,</div>
<div>Steven</div>
<div><br>
-----Original message-----<br>
<b>From:</b>JOO, Ian [Student]<a href="mailto:ian.joo@connect.polyu.hk" target="_blank"><ian.joo@connect.polyu.hk></a><br>
<b>To:</b>LINGTYP<a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank"><lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org></a><br>
<b>Date: </b> Thu, 02 Dec 2021 15:49:48<br>
<b>Subject:</b> [Lingtyp] To include xenophones or not<br>
</div>
<div name="messageBodySection">
<div dir="auto">Dear typologists,<br>
<br>
I would like to seek your advice on a database I am making.<br>
For my doctoral project, I am compiling a phonological
database of 700+ Eurasian languages.<br>
The database includes basic information such as the list of
word-finally permitted phonemes, maximal number of onsets in a
syllable, etc.<br>
For this database, I would like your opinion on whether to
include xenophonic (loanword-phonological) information or not.<br>
For example, should the database include phonemes that are
only present in loanwords (such as /x/ in English)?<br>
If the language does not allow codas in native word/ but allow
them in loanwords, should that information be allowed as well?<br>
If you were using the database, would you find such
information helpful?<br>
<br>
Pros of adding the xenophonic information: <br>
The database would be more complete. Some xenophonic features
can be very old (such as onset clusters in Tagalog,
word-initial /r/ in Japanese, etc.), so in a sense they are
"nativized" (although they may be still marked). If I mark the
native phonology and the loanword phonology distinctly in my
database (e. g. Including /ts/ in French phonology but
specifying that it only appears in loanwords), then the user
can use the database with or without xenophonic information.<br>
<br>
Cons:<br>
The problem of including xenophonic information is that, when
considering loanwords, it is difficult to judge what is part
of a language's phonology or not.<br>
For example /f/ occurs in very recent Korean loanwords such as
/f/ail 'file' or /f/eyispwuk 'Facebook' and it's difficult to
say if this is really a part of Korean phonology.<br>
Many minority language speakers are also fluent in their
national language (such as Russian or Spanish) and they may
pronounce loanwords from the national language in their
'original' pronunciation (such as Tuvan speakers pronouncing
Russian loanwords in Russian pronunciation) and it's difficult
to say if this means Russian phonology has fully integrated
into Tuvan phonology.<br>
So where to divide the line between what is purely foreign and
what has been nativized?<br>
On the other hand, distinguishing phonological features that
are only present in loanwords from those that are also present
in native words is quite straightforward and less
controversial (although there is also the problem that we do
not always know if a word is a loanword or not).<br>
Lastly, since I've already finished a good part of the
database (about 15%), if I want to also include xenophonic
information then I would have to go through the whole database
again, so there's this practical issue.<br>
<br>
So I would appreciate your advice on whether including
xenophonic information would be substantially beneficial to
you or not, if you were using the database.</div>
</div>
<div>
</div>
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From Hong Kong,
<div dir="auto">Ian</div>
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