Re: Optimum number of symbols

Ray Brown wrote:


>At 10:44 pm -0500 21/5/02, Thomas R. Wier wrote:
>[snip]
>>
>>Actually, I was referring to different forms:  <Rad> and <Rat>
>>are homophonous in the singular, and yet are phonologically
>>distinct in the plural:  <Räder> /RE:d@/ and <Räter> /RE:t@/.
>>This does bear on the criticism of a true phonemic system, since
>>a true phonemic system will fail to capture phonological
>>neutralizations like that in the German data I presented.
>>That is, /Rat/ is really two distinct words: /Rat/-1 and /Rat/-2,
Quite so.
>
>Surely, phonemically they are /ra:d/ and /ra:t/ respectively, tho both
>pronounced [ra:t], since in syllable final position /d/ is pronounce [t].
The first person to suggest that to the early phonemicists was drummed out
of the corps for introducing an "abstraction", I think.  The generative idea
of underlying (abstract) forms, operated on by a series of ordered rules,
was IMO a great improvement, even though Chomsky and Halle carried it a
little too far.

>But the falling together of final /t/ and /d/ is one of those awkward
>features that in my view suggests the phonemic analysis does not tell us
>the whole story.
All too true.

Slightly off the subject-- Perhaps our high-school Latin teachers didn't
want to trouble our little minds with details, but it strikes me now that a
lot of the bothersome "irregular" forms could have been explained more
simply by introducing us to a few rules and a little linguistic history:
e.g. the root of lex/legis is /leg-/, the nom. has |x| /ks/ simply because
of required devoicing.  (and sim. in related lego, -ere, lectus); and the
addition (actually dropping) of -t- in all those participles in /-ns ~ntis /
.  (Or perhaps others' Latin teachers did a better job than mine.......?)

Similar in Spanish, the orthographic- and radical-changing verbs (at least
the regular ones with e~ie and o~ue) could have been explained better,
rather than just treated as exceptions.

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