Re: CHAT: Phonemic status of English interdentals

From: "John Cowan" <jcowan@...>
> 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.)
Is the list of *words* closed, or just the list of morphemes?

"thalassemia" I can see being /T/-only, but suppose that someone invented a new
set of direction words for a 4-D simulation:  <whask?/hask/thask> ... shouldn't
*thask as a demonstrative, along the /(h)w h D/ series, exhibit /D/?

> 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.
Except possibly some Greek borrowings such as <mythos>, <pathos>.

And possibly <rhythmic> but I'm not sure what exactly that proves.  <arithmetic>
has /Tm/ just fine, and doesn't seem to borrow /Dm/ from the root (as it does in
<logarithm>, say), but <rhythmic> still absorbs /Dm/...   In fact that seems
odd.  Does <arithm-> always have /Tm/ (arithmetic, arithmology) and <-arithm(-)>
(logarithm, algorithm[1]) always /Dm/ ?  while <(-)rhythm(-)> always has /Dm/
(arrhythmia, biorhythm) regardless?

/me shuts up now

    *Muke!
[1] Yes, "algorithm" is cheating, I know, but it changed because *someone*
thought it sounded right...
--
http://www.frath.net/

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