Re: OT: Phonetics (IPA)

Quoting Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>:

> But if acoustically, it is recognised that we have an affricate rather than
> simple cluster, we know for sure that we have a single phoneme here. The
> problem is only when what we have is definitely a cluster, like [ps] in
> Greek.
Hm, if true, I'll have to revise my analysis of Tairezazh a bit.

The words _dzatsh_ "first" and _zvatsh_ "directional" are supposed to be a
perfect rhyme. But morphemically they divide as _dza-tsh_ and _zvat-sh_ (_-sh_
being a phonologically determined allomorph of _-zh_), so I've been thinking
of them as /d_zat_S/ and /zvatS/.

So what would be the problem with analyzing an acoustical affricate as two
phonemes? I've seen _unitary_ phones analyzed as phonemic clusters in a
variety of languages (eg [S] as /sj/ in Japanese).

                                                       Andreas

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