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

On Mon, 27 May 2002 20:12:08 +0100, And Rosta <a-rosta@...> wrote:

>Mike S.
>> On Sun, 26 May 2002 16:59:17 +0100, And Rosta <a-rosta@...>
wrote:
>>
>> >Mike S:
>> >>
>> >> 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.
>> >
>> >OK. I understand. In that case, you're half right and half wrong.
>> >Allophonic variations that are conditioned positionally (e.g.
>> >alternation between clear and dark realizations of /l/ in some
>> >Eng accents) would disappear. But that still leaves us with
>> >allophonic variation that is not conditioned positionally, which
>> >is why I gave the example of English /t/ in foot-internal
>> >intervocalic position, which can, inter alia, be [t] or tap [D].
>> >
>> >>
>> >> 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.
>> >
>> >You make complete sense. But as I say above, I don't think it
>> >is true that allophonic variation disappears in the positional-phoneme
>> >model, though it is true that there is less of it.
>>
>> One of the reasons I was initially attracted to the idea of your
>> system was the possibility that we could scrap the allophone
>> altogether, but I am gathering we cannot.  I must say that I pretty
>> consistently use the tap [D] in my own idiolect, but I can think
>> of other examples of variance, e.g. the <p> of <stop> in which
>> the release can be either aspired or unaspired, or even unreleased
>> altogether (lips just close and stay closed).  There may be other
>> glitches too.
>
>I deliberately chose the [t]/[D] allophony because it can't be
>defined by underspecification: whereas the final /p/ allophony can be
>defined by not specifying relase or aspiration, the intervocalic /t/
>allophony can be defined only extensionally, as the list {[t], [D]}.
>[That 'only' is an exaggeration, but I hope my point stands.]
It does.


>> Another idea is to specify for each of your positional-phonemes
>> the minimum required features which are defined (invariant) and
>> ignore those which are variant.  Thus, for the simple /p/ before
>> a vowel, we could say -voice, +bilabial, +plosive, +aspired.
>> For the postvocalic word-final /p/ we could say -voice, +bilabial,
>> +plosive and leave the aspiration unspecified, or alternately
>> say +/-aspired.  In other words, there would always be a few
>> minimum features that would define the positional-phoneme. Some
>> positional-phonemes could be more defined than others, but in
>> general this system would serve as shorthand for a small number
>> of closely related allophones.
>
>Quite right. Where this strategy works, it is the way to go. But
>it doesn't always work.
>
>> The only major glitch that comes to mind is if invervocalic /t/
>> does something unusual like vary between a glottal stop and a tap--
>> but I really wonder if this will normally vary in such a manner
>> within the speech of the same person or dialect imbetween the
>> same vowels.
>
>Various accents of SE England, of various social strata, have
>an alternation between [?] and [D] for /t/, though the two
>allophones differ in register and style.
>
>Anyway, I understand where you're coming from, but there really
>is no a priori reason to think that unconditioned allophony
>within a given position must be within a continuous or
>intensionally definable range; in principle, [s] and [m] could
>be allophones of the same phoneme, and if that is vanishingly
>rare, it is merely because it is a historical improbability,
>not a phonological impossibility.
>
>--And.
Okay.  That makes it all very clear.


Regards

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