Re: THEORY: Allophones
| From: | Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...> |
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| Date: | Saturday, June 19, 1999, 4:56 |
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FFlores wrote:
> Now, what's the /x/ in /kaxtat/,
> an allophone of /k/ or merely an /x/ coming from /k/
> via a phonetic change rule?
As Christophe and Kristian have already said, it's a phonetic change.=20
However, it may have at one time been an allophone, the rule being
syllable-final stop is a fricative. Perhaps a lost consonant could
account for their phonemic status, imagine, say, early /akqa/ =3D [axqa],
then /q/ was lost, so that [axqa] became [axa] (/axa/), which could
contrast with [aka] (/aka/). It doesn't necessarily HAVE to have once
been allophones, of course, they could've always been phonemes, with
fricatives and stops merging in syllable-final position.
Just some thoughts, if you've been sketching out earlier stages.
--=20
Yaw=EDntasva natab=ED, plan saf=ED nlak=FAsi
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