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

[Gabor Sandi]

[ Moderator's note:
  My apologies to Mr. Sandi for the delay in posting this, which originally was
  sent to my personal mailbox rather than to the list.
  --rma ]

>Subject: RE: minimal pairs are not always there

Because of a house move, I haven't been able to respond before now to Robert
Whiting's comments made on Nov. 6th, partially in response to me. His response,
in any case, is very long (and in my view, repetitive and somewhat insulting).
Therefore I shall restrict myself to a very concise answer.

Robert Whiting <whiting at cc.helsinki.fi> wrote:

...

<RW>Yes, well, this is what we have the IPA for.  But you may have
noticed that IPA is the International PHONETIC Alphabet, not the
*International PHONEMIC Alphabet.  You are simply confusing
phonemics with phonetics.  Phonemic transcription (/.../) is
neither phonetically unambiguous nor necessarily phonetically
accurate.  Phonetic transcription ([...]) is necessarily (or at
least to the best of the transcriber's ability) an accurate
mapping of the pronunciation of every utterance in a language.

<GS>I am aware of the difference between phonemics and phonetics. I don't like
to be accused of confusion (any more than you would be), and I maintain that
the following contrastive forms prove the presence of certain phonemic
contrasts in English:

pat - bat:	 /p/ vs. /b/
sinner - singer	/n/ vs. /ng/
ether - either 	/T/ vs. /D/

On the other hand, the same phoneme occurs in each member of the following
pairs of words, despite the obvious differences in pronunciation:

lick - fall	: both have the phoneme /l/, even though one is "clear", the
other is "dark" (this is true for England - I believe that in the US, both
/l/'s have a "dark" pronunciation)
calm - kitten	: both have /k/, even though one is velar, the other palatal
pet - spin	: both have  /p/, even though one is aspirated, the other not

So where exactly is my confusion as to the understanding of phonemic theory?

[more of the same, so snip]

>Therefore if there is a single pair of words distinguished by
>the presence of sound A in one and sound B in the other (this is
>the definition of "minimal pairs"), this should be sufficient to
>establish a phonemic difference. In any dialect of English where
>"either" may be pronounced /i:dh at r/ (@ stands for the schwa), the
>existence of the minimal pair either/ether is then sufficient to
>establish the existence of separate phonemes /dh/ and /th/.

<RW>This is like saying that [x] and [ç] (the ich-laut) must be
separate phonemes in German because you can find "minimal pairs"
with these two sounds ('Kuhchen' [ku:çen] "little cow" and
'Kuchen' [ku:xen] "cake" or 'Tauchen' [tauçen] "little rope" and
'tauchen' [tauxen] "to dive, submerge").  This is just not so.
The presence of these sounds can be explained by rule (even if
it isn't a phonological rule).  I expect that most native speakers
of German would not accept these as "minimal pairs" even if they
are by your definition.

<GS>Others in the newsgroup, some of them Germans, have made very good
counterarguments to this, and I won't repeat them.

However, [x] and [ç] are beginning to go their separate ways in German, and
to act like separate phonemes, just as bilabial [f] and laryngeal [h] do in
Japanese (see my argument in the previous message). If you won't take my word
for it, read the most recent edition of Duden's German Grammar, in which there
is a very interesting discussion of exactly this issue. The main piece of
evidence is from recent loanwords like Chalikose [çaliko:zE] and Chanukka
[xanuka], showing that, at least before initial /a/, there is now a potential
contrast, and we have a nascent phonemic contrast on our hands.

<RW>And a single "minimal pair" doesn't establish separate phonemes;
it establishes a contrast between two segments.  If one accepts
'ether' and 'either' as a minimal pair, this proves only that
[th] and [dh] contrast.  It doesn't prove that [th] and/or [dh]
are not allophones of /t/ and/or /d/.  See below.

<GS>

So? The contrasts thin/tin and there/dare will take care of this argument. Or
thin/sin and bathe/bays, if you want to carry the argument to the fricatives.

[Snip on discussion of the interplay among phonetics, phonemics and meaning.]

>You may of course not accept my approach, but I do not see the
>utility of a phonemic system that cannot uniquely map the
>pronunciation of every word in a language.

<RW>But this is not the purpose of a phonemic system.  Phonemic
systems do not uniquely map the pronunciation of every word in a
language.  Again, you are confusing phonemics with phonetics.
Phonemic analysis accounts for the different phones used in a
language by assigning them to phonemes.  And this is done by
determining which phones contrast and which do not.  But a
phonemic inventory is coextensive with a phonetic inventory of a
language only if there are no allophones.

<GS>What on earth am I confusing? I never said that all phones must be assigned
to separate phonemes. I said that, specifically, /T/ and /D/ must be assigned
to separate phonemes, and I gave the evidence. They contrast. Let me give you
another piece of evidence:

Imagine the conversation between a nurse and an anaesthetist:

Nurse: "Doctor, we are running out of gas. Shall I get ether or chloroform?"

Doctor - version 1: "Ether will do"
Doctor - version 2: "Either will do" (US pronunciation)

The two potential answers by the doctor differ in one, and only one, phonetic
feature: one has a voiceless sound (phone) in the middle of the first word, the
other a voiced one. In my view, there can be no better proof of the existence
of a phonemic contrast. Pronouncing the wrong allophone (say, pronouncing
"aspirin" with an aspirated /p/) will not normally have the potentially deadly
consequences of pronouncing the word with the wrong phoneme in the above
conversation.

[snip]

<RW>I'm surprised that you haven't included /x/ as an English
fricative.  Although once present and then lost, is has surely
been borrowed back in words like 'ach', 'loch' and names like
'Bach'.

<GS>Actually, I'd rather include the phone [x] as the allophone of /h/ in
word-final position. Of course, if you consider channukkah and chutzpah as part
of English, /x/ will have to be included as a new phoneme.

[snip and snip]

Gabor Sandi
g_sandi at hotmail.com