Return of the minimal pairs

[Max Wheeler]

--On Sunday, May 20, 2001 13:58 -0400 "Paul S. Cohen" <pausyl at AOL.COM>
wrote:

> Actually, there's another possible view of this situation that's
> completely consistent with classical phonemics:  since [[eng]] and [h]
> are in complementary distribution in English (yes, I know about the
> Trager&Smith tradition of talking about [h] and [[schwa]] being
> allophones), and since they are, in some sense, phonetically similar
> (they comprise a class that can be characterized as "the back, continuant
> consonants"), why not put them together as allophones of /[eng]/ or /h/
> (whichever you like)? Occam's Razor would seem to demand doing so.  This,
> I would hope, shows off some off the inadequacies of classical phonemics.

Actually [eng] and [h] share no features that are not shared more widely.
[eng] is not [continuant] as normally understood. At best some phonologists
might once have linked them as [+sonorant] (though nowadays [h] would be
seen as [-sonorant]) but even then they don't share this characteristic to
the exclusion of [?], [m], [n]. The phonetic similarity criterion requires
at least that the potential co-allophones be no less similar to each other
than either is to something else.

And if you allow proper names (and whyever not?) it isn't even true that
[eng] and [h] are in complementary distribution, since both occur between
unstressed vowels in e.g. Birmingham, Callaghan, Houlihan, Monaghan.

> Bob Whiting wants to allow morpheme boundaries as part of the allowable
> phonological conditioners in deciding whether it's "one phoneme or two",
> and I'm in full agreement.  In the American school of phonemics, this
> position goes back at least to Kenneth Pike in the 1940's, despite the
> fear of "mixing levels" in that school.  It's clear that perspicuous
> analysis of phonological systems often requires it.  In fact, I would go
> a step farther:  There are times when perspicuous phonemic/phonological
> analysis requires the use of other phonetic, morphological, and syntactic
> characterizations as well.  One may choose to draw the line in various
> places in deciding phonemicity, but being too restrictive will often
> eliminate generalizations--even some that naive speakers are making--
> whether consciously or unconsciously.  An example that I am very familiar
> with concerns the tensing and raising of [ae] (that is "ash") in the New
> York City area.  In broad outline (and I'll omit irrelevant details) [ae]
> is tensed and raised in front of voiced stops, /m/, /n/, and fricatives
> when these are followed by an obstruent or a major morpheme boundary, so
> that, e.g., the stressed vowel of _adder_ 'snake' is not tensed and
> raised, but that of _adder_ 'adding machine; one who or that which adds'
> is.  If morpheme boundaries are not allowed, we have to posit two
> phonemes.  Not a very satisfying solution.  But wait; there's more.  _I
> can fish._ (with emphatic or contrastive stress on _can_) has no tensing
> and raising of the [ae] if it means 'I am able to fish', but has tensing
> and raising if it means 'I work in a fish cannery'.  Pretty
> straightforward then:  must be a phonemic split.  Not so fast:  It turns
> out that all words that can have [schwa] as their only vowel, *always*
> have untensed and unraised [ae] in their stressed form, at least in one
> major subdialect.  (This list, which I have termed "weak words", includes
> _am, as, can, had, has, have, than_.) Wait, I hear you say; why not talk
> about "function words" or "closed-class words"?  Because, _can't_ *is*
> always tensed and raised.  What sets it apart is that it can never have
> [schwa] as its only vowel--i.e., it is never completely unstressed.
>

Well with a phonemic split you expect to find evidence of the original
conditioning environment; with only the examples Paul gives, then the
answer to

> Anyhow, one phoneme or two?  You be the judge.

could well be 'the jury's still out'.

But many speakers who have pronunciations like Paul describes have split
the following class:
sad, glad, bad
(according to Labov) so that these words don't all have the same vowel. So
real split.

As has happened with British English GAS/PASS, most English PUTT/PUT,
though with these grammatical conditioning seems never to have entered the
story.

Max
____________________________________________________________
Max W. Wheeler
School of Cognitive & Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Falmer
BRIGHTON BN1 9QH, G.B.

Tel: +44 (0)1273 678975 Fax: +44 (0)1273 671320 Email:
maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk
____________________________________________________________