dot-calm

[Laurence Horn]

At 4:02 PM -0500 1/2/07, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>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

I'll take the rawhide Jesus, thanks.

LH

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