Re: OT: Definitely Not YAEPT: English phoneme inventory?

"Mark J. Reed" wrote:
> Well, let me back up a bit; maybe I'm overstating.  How do you
> determine whether two phones are allophonic variants of a single
> phoneme, vs. distinct phonemes in complementary distribution?
> Into which category do Japanese [h]/[p\] fall?  What about [s]/[S]
> in the same language?
In native words, allophones.  [h], [P] and [C] are in complimentary
distribution.  [P] before /u/, [C] before /i/ or /j/, and [h]
elsewhere.  Likewise, [S] is used before /i/ or /j/.  A word like shoujo
is /sjo:zjo/.  The reason [S] can be analyzed as underlyingly /sj/ is
that it cannot occur before /e/, which is also a restriction on /j/.
(Note, tho, that some dialects do have [Se], however, those dialects
also lack [se], so it's merely a slightly different restriction, namely,
[S] before front vowels and /j/, [s] before back vowels).  Also, there
are alternations in paradigms, such as hanasu-hanashimasu, or
tatsu-tatanai-tachimasu.  And early loans reflect the perceived unity,
coffee -> koohii (but compare the more recent caffeine -> kefein), tip
-> chippu (but compare paatii < party).

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