Re: THEORY: phonemics (was: RE: [CONLANG] Optimum number of symbols

On Sat, 25 May 2002 20:58:54 +0100, And Rosta <a-rosta@...> wrote:

>Mike S:
>> On Tue, 21 May 2002 01:27:25 +0100, And Rosta <a-rosta@...>
wrote:
>> >
>> >I do fully accept that phonemics is a very useful tool for creating
>> >writing systems -- indeed, that was the driving force behind the
>> >early development of phonemic analysis. But as I said in another
>> >message, the writing systems that result are practical but kludgey,
>> >especially at the conceptual level.
>
>Do note that final paragraph of mine, so as to make sure we don't
>inadvertently end up arguing about something we in fact agree on!
Understood :-)  My purpose here is to understand your system in theory
that I might use it, or parts of it, in a formal phonological
description, if I so choose.

>> I am intrigued by your rejection of the notion of the phoneme, and
>> what it suggests in the way of producing a phonological decription
>> of a given language, but I am still a little unclear in a few areas.
>> The following are the questions foremost in my mind:
>>
>> (1) In a given language, each phonotactic position will specify
>> a set of contrastive phonological segments.  I am gathering that
>> each contrastive phonological segment in a given set/phonotactic
>> position will be invariant to about the same degree that a phone
>> is invariant in a classical phonemic description of a language.
>> Is this correct?
>
>I'm afraid I can't work out what 'phone' and 'invariant' mean here,
>but if we confine our attention to a single phonotactic environment
>then the criteria for establishing the phoneme inventory would be
>the same as for classical phonemics.
I believe I understand the criteria for establishing the phoneme
inventory for each single phonotactic environment.  What I meant by,
and was trying to point out by, the term 'invariant' is that it seems
to me that each positional-phoneme in a given set will be much more
precisely defined featurally than a phoneme in classical phonemics
--insofar as a phoneme in classical phonemics is truly defined at all.

In my view, classical phonemes *aren't* truly defined featurally.
For example, the statement "/p/ is an unvoiced phoneme" is not
literally true.  We regularly interpret that to mean "the phoneme
/p/ has allophones most (or all) of which are unvoiced."  To take
the first statement literally is to miss the point.  Phonemes are
rendered by allophones which are defined featurally;  phonemes
themselves are not defined featurally and speaking about them as
if they are is actually verbal shorthand for speaking about the
allophones.  It is only because the allophones are *pragmatically
assigned* to a particular phoneme that phonemes even appear to be
defined featurally.  Thus, when you call phonemics arbitrary and
unprincipled, I don't completely disagree with you.

Getting back to your system, in the example you give below, fricative
+ plosive clusters in English onsets, one would identify 3 positional-
phonemes here. These would be identifiable with neither /p, t, k/ nor
/b, d, g/, since these sets are defined by a voice contrast.  Fair
enough.  But certainly, each of these will be regularly rendered
in speech as a relatively well-defined segment.  For example, the
bilabial of the set can be described as [p]--a voiceless, unaspired,
bilabial plosive, and never otherwise.  This is what I meant by
'invariant'.  A positional-phoneme in a given set will generally
be pronounced the same way each time;  it will not vary with any
feature.

I better stop here to see if I am making any sense.


Regards

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