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Re: CHAT: Phonemic status of English interdentals

From:John Cowan <jcowan@...>
Date:Wednesday, October 9, 2002, 10:37
Josh Roth scripsit:

> On the other hand, there are > few if any good minimal pairs, they can sometimes be interchanged, and people > often can't tell the difference on demand (this may be due to the lack of > minimal pairs and the fact that they are neither written differently nor > [usually, at least, I assume] taught as distinct sounds in school, whereas > other phonemes are).
In addition, the list of words containing /D/ is closed; all new words, whether coined or borrowed, use /T/. If you show the word "thalassemia" (a genetic blood disease) to someone who has never seen it before, they will pronounce it with /T/. (Mark Line of this list pointed this out.) The general rule is that /D/ is used initially only in function words, and not all of them; also intervocalically, and finally where a final /@/ ("silent e") has been lost. This rule is messy, but I think captures all the cases. My wife had great difficulty pronouncing "Gwynedd" correctly as /gwInED/, essentially because of the /D/: she automatically made it /gwInET/. She has of course no problem with final /D/ as in "breathe". -- John Cowan jcowan@reutershealth.com www.ccil.org/~cowan www.reutershealth.com "If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants." --Isaac Newton

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Muke Tever <mktvr@...>