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

I'm sure we've discussed this topic before on the list, but several
people have asked me to clarify:

I had written:
>  > On another point, I would in a conlang want to reject a phonemic script
>  > because I reject the very notion of the phoneme.
Mike S:
> I am taken aback by the rejection of the very notion of phoneme.  Why,
> or in exactly what way, do you reject the notion of phonemes?
Tim May:
> Like others, I'd be interested in some elaboration of this statement.
julien eychenne:
> So am I : it is very hard to reject the phoneme as a linguistic unit,
> even in languages with syllabic writing systems. One can't forget that a
> language is spoken before it is written, and there are people who have
> no idea of how the language is written. That doesn't prevent them from
> having a mental representation of the language, and this representation
> is not only syllabic (on evenly phonemic). I think we should not confuse
> :
>   - phonological skills : syllable and phoneme are *both* adequate
> levels of analyse, and the mind has a representation at each level of
> the language. Here is an exemple where you can hardly do without the
> notion of phoneme : il you pay attention to your own speech (I did, and
> it works :-P) you will notice "mismappings" such as : "he bakes the
> took" instead of "he takes the book". This is a clear evidence of the
> phoneme being a unit, separated from the pure skeletal slots, because
> two unit were mismapped. It would be crazy to say that it's a feature or
> syllable shift. The syllable is another psychophonological unit, and in
> my example it is certainly relevant, as the mapping occurs in the onset
> of the syllable ;)
>
>   - graphical skills : the mind may have (but not necessarily) a
> graphical representation of the language, rather syllabic or rather
> phonemic or whatever else.
>
> Now, if you reject the phoneme as a monolithic
> "Sound-Pattern-of-English"-like feature matrix, with no internal
> structure, I just agree with you :) Autosegmental analyses gave clear
> evidences (at least they convinced me) for separate tiers for almost
> every feature. Moreover, new notions in phonology such as skeleton allow
> to have deeper and "healthier" (though not perfect) representation of
> the sound structure of language. But even if the notion has been deeply
> modified and criticized, it is really hard to completely give it up.
and Ray:
> I wouldn't go quite that far. But 'phoneme' is only an abstraction which
> can provide a convenient tool in certain circumstances; but it's by no
> means the only way to describe sound or phonology.
So in brief, here is what I meant:

1. I reject the classical notion of a phoneme inventory, because there are
different sets of contrasting segments for different phonotactic positions
(e.g. syllable-initial and syllable-final). Criteria for identifying
members of different sets with one another rest on a set of rather
woolly criteria involving some notion of phonetic similarity or details
of morphological alternations. If the phoneme inventory is to be established
by rigid application of the principle of contrast, then the total
phoneme inventory should consist of the separate inventories for
the different phonotactic positions, with phonotactic position treated
as a phonological feature of each phoneme.

2. The more usual objection to phonemics (as I gather most of us know;
please don't take my explanation to be patronizing) is that it overly
privileges the segment. A full analysis of a phonological structure
requires recognizing elements both below the level of the segment (i.e.
structure internal to the segment) and above the level of the segment
(e.g. at rime, syllable, foot level). So, to answer Julien, the
validity of the segment is not being denied; what is being denied
is its privileged, 'emic', status. To my mind, Julien wrongly
takes 'phoneme' to mean 'phonological segment'; 'phoneme' carries
extra theoretical baggage with it.

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.

--And.

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