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

[proto-language]

Dear Robert and IEists:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Whiting" <whiting at cc.helsinki.fi>
Sent: Tuesday, November 14, 2000 10:36 AM

> On Sun, 05 Nov 2000 CONNOLLY at LATTE.MEMPHIS.EDU wrote:

>>>On Thu, 2 Nov 2000, David L. White wrote:

>>>> 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:

<snip>

> I would have said that contrasts that can be accounted for by
> rules are not phonemic contrasts.

<snip>

Back in the Early Logocene, when this thread started, the question was posed
as to whether Ablaut variation in IE roots established *e and *o as phonemes
in IE.

Am I correct in assuming that, for you, at least, an IE *Ce/oC- does not
establish *e and *o as IE phonemes?

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit
ec at ec hecc, vindga meipi a netr allar nmo, geiri vnda~r . . . a ~eim
mei~i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rstom renn." (Havamal 138)