dot-calm

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On 1/2/07, Mark A. Mandel <mamandel at ldc.upenn.edu> wrote:
> Then you'd have to call [h] and [ng] allophones in English, as Y-R Chao
> proposed in jest, of a single phoneme he called "heng":
>
>  - They're similar in articulation:
>      - /h/ < OldEng /x/, so you could call it an underlying velar.
>      - they're both continuants.
>
>  - They're in complementary distribution:
>      - /h/ always syll-initial
>      - /ng/ always syll-final
>    (and so, of course, CANNOT provide any minimal pairs).

I once tried to find some quasi-minimal pairs for /h/~/ng/ by ignoring
morpheme boundaries and came up with the following (which work better
for speakers with the cot-caught merger):

rawhide ~ wrong-eyed [*]
straw hat ~ strong at
law highland ~ Long Island

[*] The singer Jim White released an album in 1997 called "Wrong-Eyed
Jesus", or more fully "The Mysterious Tale of How I Shouted Wrong-Eyed
Jesus." That inspired a documentary featuring White and other
alt-country singers called "Searching For The Wrong-Eyed Jesus".


--Ben Zimmer

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