Don't touch my phonemes (was: minimal pairs ex: PIE e/o Ablaut)

[CONNOLLY at LATTE.MEMPHIS.EDU]

>On Thu, 2 Nov 2000, David L. White wrote:
>
><snip>
>
>> For English /th/ vs/ /dh/, the question to ask is something like "In a
>> story where two brothers were named "Lith" and "Lidh", would an
>> audience be able to keep them apart?"  The answer is clearly yes,
>> regardless of the various other consideration that some have noted,
>> therefore the distinction is (not surprisingly) phonemic.

Bob Whiting replied:

>No, the answer is:  if there were two brothers named Lith and Lidh then
>the distinction would be phonemic.  As long as there aren't, there is
>no phonemic distinction.  It doesn't matter that the two sounds are
>capable of being distinct phonemes.  Until they are used as phonemes
>by the speakers of the language, they aren't phonemes for all that they
>are recognizably different sounds.  When speakers start coining unrelated
>words where [th] contrasts with [dh] then they will be phonemes.  The
>fact that you could coin words where they contrast is not sufficient.

This is simply wrong.  We could, theoretically, coin words where aspirated [ph]
contrasted with plain [p] -- but if we did, people would have to learn to
control, and pay attention to, a hitherto redundant feature.  But people
already hear, and pay attention to, the voicing distinction in the interdental
fricatives, just as they do in the other English fricatives and affricates.
And there are those minimal pairs, such as ether:either and thigh:thy, which
cannot be dismissed by *synchronically* attributing them to some morphological
conditioning or to a native:foreign dichotomy.

Let me drag in a notorious German example.  [x] and palatal [c,] are very
nearly in complementary distribution, with [x] found only immediately after
back vowels a(:) o(:) u(:) au.  [c,] is found after front vowels and
diphthongs, all consonants, and (for some speakers) initially.  But the
diminutive suffix -chen has only [c,] even after back vowels -- a rare
occurrence, since -chen normally fronts ("umlauts") the preceding vowel.  So
one finds alleged minimal pairs such as Kuchen [khu.c, at n] 'cake' and baby-talk
Kuhchen [khu:c, at n] 'little cow', which some claim demonstrate that [x] and [c,]
must be assigned to different phonemes.  And furthermore, many (most?) German
speakers hear the difference quite clearly.  But are they separate phonemes?
No, as is shown by the fact that Kuchen : Kuhchen form a subminimal pair: the
vowel of the latter is clearly (but non-distinctively) longer than the former,
indicating that it was in root-final position, before suffix -chen.  Then, on
synchronic grounds along, we may write the alleged minimal pair as /ku:x at n/
'cake' but /ku:+x at n/ 'little cow': the boundary /+/ conditions both the extra
vowel length and the palatal realization of /x/.  The fact that all such
"minimal pairs" contain precisely the diminutive suffix -chen confirms this
analysis.  It is therefore unlikely, though possible, that German could coin
new words in which [x] and [c,] would (appear to) contrast in some other
environment, just as it is unlikely that English would coin new words
contrasting precisely in aspired [ph] vs. plain [p].

But English does have a few minimal pairs for the interdentals, ones which
cannot be explained on phonologucal grounds.  True, in my pronunciation, the
stressed vowel of _either_ is longer than that of _ether_ -- but this is in
line with vowel length before other voices vs. voiceless consonants.  And
there's no difference in _thigh_ vs. _thy_.  So the fact that new words
contrasting only in having [T] vs. [D] could be formed without any new feature
becoming distinctive confirms that the two are searate phonemes, and have ben
so for some time.

>And as you unintentionally point out, when they become phonemes, [dh]
>will have to be written <dh>, otherwise you couldn't distinguish between
><Lith> and <Lith>.

Well, it should be so written already, but we ignore all sorts of other
distinctions, and it doesn't bother us.  <s> stands for /s z S Z/ (the latter
two as in _pressure_ and _pleasure_ -- in fact, we don't evan have an official
way to spell /Z/, though <zh> would seem obvious.  And don't even ask about the
vowels: treating <y w> as doublets of <i u>, we have effective five vowel
symbols for a very large phonemic inventory.  I'd be glad to see ,dh. in use,
but it really has nothing to do with whether [T D] are separate phonemes.

regards

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