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

MJR> How do you determine whether two phones are allophonic variants
MJR> of a single phoneme, vs. distinct phonemes in complementary
MJR> distribution?  Into which category do Japanese [h]/[p\] fall?
MJR> What about [s]/[S] in the same language?

NT> In native words, allophones.

That was my understanding as well.  But what about borrowings?  The
Japanese borrowed have the word "fan" (as in sports fan; actually, I've heard
"fanatiku" more often, but the short form is also used), and pronounce
it [p\an], and don't confuse it with "han".  That would seem to argue
for [h] and [p\] being different phonemes...

On the other hand, on that song I was transcribing there's a point where
the lyrics say "hoshi" and the singer very clearly says [p\oSi], even
though the vowel is /o/ rather than /u/.

It just seems to me that it's not always an easy line to draw.

-Mark

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