Re: CHAT: Phonemic status of English interdentals

In a message dated 10/9/02 3:23:56 AM, kesuari@YAHOO.COM.AU writes:

>Josh Roth wrote:
>
>>In a message dated 10/9/02 12:56:52 AM, morg0072@FLINDERS.EDU.AU writes:
>>
>>
>>
>>>Tristan wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Much easier to tell the difference between [&] and [&:] (which only
>>>>have one debatable minimal pair---can and can)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>1. "banner" (one who bans) vs "banner" (flag)
>>>
>>>2. "banning" (participle of ban) / "Banning" (surname of former South
>>>  Australian premier.
>>>
>>>
>>I also have "have" vs. "halve", which are on the same level as "can" and
>>"can".
>>
>Not for me; 'halve' is /ha:v/.
Oh right... we're talking about different things I suppose, being in
Australia and New York. That's what happens when I write at 3 in the morning.
Well I guess I knew they were different, as the distinction is not for me is
not one of length but of quality - the latter examples for me have something
between [&] and [e@], for which there is no IPA symbol. I was just thinking
they were analogous (which I guess they are somewhat...), or you were
representing it a different way.

>> Then there are more dubious ones like "shall" vs. "shale", "Val"
>>(short for Valerie) vs. "veil", "gal" vs. "gale", etc.
>>
>All those words with 'long A's' are /&i@l/ for me. However, I was
>reminded of another: L (name of the letter)/Elle vs Al. (And I guess
>that /&l/ < /el/ never gets lengthened to /&:l/ suggests something...
>unless you analyse [&l] as /el/, which doesn't explain why 'shall' and
>'shell' are homophones. Not that I know a lot about phonemes... I'm
>hoping to learn some more at Uni. Argh, a touch over a fortnight till
>the end of school; a month and a half till my last exam...)
Well I'm not too familiar with your speech variety at all (I've only heard
Australian speech in some beer commercials I think!). Those two words are not
homophones for me though, the first is /S&l/ and the second /SEl/. Are you in
a linguistics class now? We just started school about a month ago here ... I
guess everything is reversed.

>>About the interdentals - I guess it's one of those things that makes you
>>think things are really on a continuum rather than being absolutely one
>or
>>the other. They're phonemes in the sense that many people can hear the
>>difference and "feel" that they are different, and even people who claim
>they
>>can't hear the difference will pronounce them correctly - i.e., they will
>>used the voiced one in certain words and the voiceless one in other words,
>>and not dependent on some phonetic condition. 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). So maybe on a scale of phonemes to non-phonemes,
>they're
>>somewhere in the middle. Maybe one day they will completely merge into
>/T/.
>>
>Much more likely to merge into /f/ and /v/. Over on this side of
>Melbourne, you hear people talking of veir maffs... I guess these people
>are aware of the difference...
>
>Tristan.
You may certainly be right. I however, never hear /f/ and /v/ for /T/ and
/D/, except in references to the speech of some Black people or
African-Americans (the second term is used more often, but the first seems to
me more accurate for what people MEAN when they say the second, as they are
not usually including Egyptian-American Arabs and South African-American
Whites, for example [not meaning to start a whole discussion or flamefest on
race or anything]). Of course, /f/ and /v/ may spread in the future, but for
now, the interdentals seem pretty secure here.


Josh Roth
http://members.aol.com/fuscian/home.html

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