Bad Taste Breakthrough! PLUS New Phoneme! (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Eric Nielsen]

I would think the obnoxious buzzer sound used on game shows and the like to
indicate a wrong answer may qualify as a morph/phoneme as well. It's often
heard in conversation and on TV where a character will say something like: "
"aaaaaa"  that's not the answer I want." or
" "aaaaaa" you lose."

Language in the future may include more and more electronic sounds based on
pitch (as in A 440) and timbre. These sounds could be understood universally
and transcend present language barriers.

Eric




On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 3:58 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Bad Taste Breakthrough! PLUS New Phoneme! (UNCLASSIFIED)
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> ....A speech sound that carries a perceived meaning,  rather than exists
> simply
> as a part of the language's system of speech sounds, is traditionally
> called
> a morpheme.  So "eeeeeeee" would thus be both a phoneme and a morpheme
> (like
> / ^ /,  which allows one to pronounce the word "a.").  But unlike the word
> "a," it would have numerous meanings linked by the unusual feature
> [+thought
> naughty by unhip old people].
>
> But perhaps the show will flop and Cap'n Kirk will go back to his great
> Priceline commercials. ("You win *this* time...good twin!!!!" [Cue sound
> effect of vanishing in smoke.])
>
> Or perhaps we're making too much of this.
>
> JL
>
>

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