thy thigh etc.

[Leo A. Connolly]

Robert Whiting wrote, concerning the endless thy thigh debate::

> But I'm not invoking etymology (except to show that the morpheme boundary
> really is there), I'm invoking perceptual categories.  Certainly there is
> no productive morpheme boundary in either of these words, and if you read
> the posting, then you know that I said as much.  I don't expect naive
> native speakers to know about the morpheme boundary in 'either' in the
> same way that they know about the morpheme boundary in 'running'.
> Similarly, I wouldn't expect your average NNS to know that there is a
> morpheme boundary in 'both' or that the 'th' of this word is the same
> morpheme as in 'the'.

If the speakers do not "know" of a supposed morpheme boundary in
_either_, you have a *big* problem.  If you through [T] and [D] into one
phoneme, and if the speakers must have access to a rule voicing /T/ in
certain morphological-phonetic environments (else they could not produce
the correct output), and if the morpheme boundary somehow explains why
_either_ has [D] while _ether_ does not, then how do they know to let
the rule operate?  Historical morpheme boundaries cannot form the
environment for a synchronic rule unless they are also, and still,
synchronic boundaries, which is what you have in effect just denied.

Leo Connolly