minimal pairs (was: PIE e/o Ablaut)

[petegray]

Pat said:

> I think the pair when:wen is minimal for voiceless /w/.

> In 'hue', the glide belongs with the vowel, as it does in 'hew'.

Despite a number of pairs (where:wear etc) some writers deny voiceless w as
a phoneme, and analyse it as h+w, which to my ears is daft.

My dialect might originally  have pronounced "hue" as /h-yu:/, but it
certainly no longer does.  Such a pronunciation would not even be
recognised.  The consonant has to be the ich-laut.   But still, some people
(such as Pat, who on this occasion is in good company) deny its phonemicity.

Hence my point that minimal pairs are not a sufficient criterion - we also
actually make decisions on the basis of a theoretical structure into which
potential phonemes fit.

Peter