Syllabicity

[CONNOLLY at LATTE.MEMPHIS.EDU]

Leo wrote to Pat:

>>Phonemes are minimal distinctive units of *sound*, not of
>>*meaning*.  Do study up on this.

Stefan Georg erwiderte:

>The ability to *differentiate* meanings (not to *have* them) is, in *my*
>humble opinion, part and parcel of every non-avantgardistic definition of
>the notion "phoneme", n'est-ce pas ? Minimal pairs have different meanings,
>or are my textbooks hopefully outdated ?

The classic use of minimal pairs is to prove that two sounds contrast (and must
therefore be assigned to separate phonemes).  This is done by showing that at
least in a subset of the language, replacing one phone with another will make a
different word.  But that does not make phonemes minimal units of *meaning*.
In other words: a minimal pair such as English _pin : bin_ while show that the
difference in sound between [ph] and [b] is significant.  The lack of contrast
between [phin] and non-existent *[pin] ([p] normal in _spin_) shows that
aspiration is not significant in English, or in other words, that [ph] and [p]
must be assigned to the same phoneme.  Well and good.  Knowing this, we can
tell that [phaet] and [baet] are different words.  But this does not mean that
[ph] and [b], or /p/ and /b/, actually *have* meaning, as some of the
unfortunate wording in Larry's dictionary led Pat to conclude.  If they did,
we'd have to say that /p-/ and /b-/were prefixes attached to the roots /aet/
and /in/.

>Also, if anyone subscribes to the last but one sentence in the quoted
>passage above (which would then lead to the last, of course), how would
>this anyone define the notion "distinctive" in this passage ?

As 'different' -- 'differentiating' -- 'was anderes'...

>Always willing to learn, but, as W. Brandt used to say "Wir waren schon mal
>weiter ...".

Wir vielleicht schon.  Aber doch nicht alle.  Das erfaehrt man hier doch
staendig.

Leo

Leo A. Connolly                         Foreign Languages & Literatures
connolly at latte.memphis.edu              University of Memphis