All 40 USA English phonemes (Was Re: Eggcorn? "warn" > "worn")

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:19 AM +0000 2/13/09, Tom Zurinskas wrote:
>I can't show that finger ~feenger and singer 
>~seenger don't rhyme in truespel notation.  I 
>would actually say they do rhyme close enough. 
>Why don't they rhyme?
>
>In m-w.com I listen to "singer" and the "g" is suppressed
>
>Main Entry: 1sing·er
>Pronunciation: \?si©Ø-?r\
>
>I listen to "finger" and the "g" is not suppressed
>
>Main Entry: 1fin·ger
>Pronunciation: \?fi©Ø-g?r\
>
>If I reverse the "g" suppression would any words 
>be misunderstood?  I think not.  Would "singer" 
>be mispronounced if the "g" were not suppressed? 
>I think not.  Is this a big deal?  I think not. 
>Would an English teacher need to say for a list 
>of all "inger" words that "singer" is different? 
>Why bother?  And for other affixes like "ing" 
>does not the "g" then get pronounced as in 
>"singin' in the rain"?
>
>
>finger
>linger
>dinger
>singer
>winger
>stinger
>
>Do these rhyme?
>
>Perhaps "singer" with the "s" said so far 
>forward in the mouth, the tongue doesn't care to 
>go so far back for that "g" so it elides it a 
>bit.  It allophonics.
>
No, it actually morphophonemics, as an intro 
class would have taught you.  It has nothing to 
do with the /s/.  singer = sing + -er, so the "g" 
is suppressed (as you put it).  finger =/= fing + 
er, so there's a /g/ after the /N/.  (This holds 
for my dialect, and apparently yours.) 
Similarly, "stinger" (< sting + -er) doesn't 
rhyme with "linger" (=/= ling + er).  "longer" 
has a /g/ in the second syllable because of the 
nature of the comparative suffix vs. the agentive 
suffix.  Does it matter that your transcription 
system can't deal with these non-rhymes, or (as 
noted earlier) with the fact that "sun" and 
"sung" aren't the same?  (And no, it's not the 
vowel.)  Well, it depends on your intended 
standard of accuracy.

LH

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