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Re: more English orthography

From:Carlos Eugenio Thompson (EDC) <edccet@...>
Date:Wednesday, May 17, 2000, 14:49
On Þø,r Life of Wat,r ov Tend,rness ov fø,rst Red Cat, Nìk Tail,r wrote:

> Marcus Smith wrote: > > But [@] is an allophone of all the lax vowels, so I don't see what this > is > > supposed to prove. Also, in my dialect there are times when unstressed > [V] > > resists changing to [@]. My first phonology professor said that wasn't > > unusual. > > Well, that may be true in your dialect, but I did specify "in my > dialect", [@] and [V] are in complimentary distribution, and they are > phonetically similar, that's the definition of allophone I learned. > Yes, all lax vowels can become /@/, but isn't that simply phonemic > neutralization, as in the German phenomenon of voiced consonants > devoicing word-finally? >
And h`òw dó yú base yúr claims ðat [@] is an allofone and not a neutralisat`,n ov [V] (or ov eny oð,r vòw,l)? I mên, I cood ålso claim ðat [@] and [E] ár in complimentary distribût`,n and fonètically sìmilar (unrounded lax medium vòw,ls).
> Of course schwa is a phoneme, I don't think anyone's said it wasn't. I > merely stated that IN MY DIALECT, [@] and [V] are allophones, [V] used > in stressed syllables, [@] in unstressed. >
-- Carlos Th