Re: CHAT: Phonemic status of English interdentals

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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