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Re: Advice required: phonologic or phonetic?

From:François Herrscher <fchauvet@...>
Date:Monday, July 12, 2004, 6:28
To my post:

>> How would you call a (part of) consonant (e.g. /k/, phonemic) which is >> still considered the same consonant when it becomes /g/ (allophone) and >> the /k/--/g/ opposition has grammatical meaning? Knowing, of course, >> that the native script uses the same symbol for both? >> (This last point is very important: due to intensive use of infixes, the >> very fact that [k]aned [g] are considered the "same" consonant is the
only
>> way to distinguish, e.g., /LOT/ from /LOK/, while phonetically they may >> become [luG] or [lowD] respectively) >> It is just a matter of technical vocabulary and notation, I think. But, >> I would like to avoid any misunderstanding.
And replied:
> It's much more than a matter of technical vocabulary and notation. > /k/ and /g/ are different *phonemes*, according to your description. > If [lok] and [log] contrast, even if the contrast is a grammatical > one, then [g] is not an allophone of /k/.
> Here are two alternative possible analytical strategies:
> A. /k/ and /g/ are different phonemes, but lexical forms (stems?) > are composed not of phonemes but of archiphonemes, such as 'L', > 'O', 'K'. (Morpho)phonological rules specify which phoneme > realizes a given archiphoneme in a given environment. The native > script's symbols represent archiphonemes.
>B. (...) > Strategy A sounds like it might be the more appropriate one in > the present instance.
This is it. Precisely and concisely what I was expecting. I had been aware of archiphonemes, but had forgotten about them... Thank you very, very much, And. François.