Re: THEORY: phonemics (was: RE: [CONLANG] Optimum

"Mike S." wrote:
> To use my own idiolect as an example, assume for a moment that
> although I never say [?] for intervocalic /t/, I also never fail
> to hear [?] for intervocalic /t/ when pronounced that way by
> others.  For my own idiolect, would you say that [?] is part of
> the intervocalic phoneme /t/ for my idiolect (even though I never
> say it), or no it isn't (even though I always hear it)?
But, is that really a part of the phoneme /t/?  I'd consider that simply
part of your knowledge of other accents.  The first time I heard that
usage, I didn't know what they were saying, it was only later that I
learned that was the way they pronounced /t/ in some dialects.  Since I
have no [?] in my dialect (except sometimes before word-initial vowels),
there was no chance of confusing their [?] with anything in my dialect,
thus, it was an easy thing to learn.  But, I certainly don't preserve it
as being /t/.

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