Re: help! phonology...& addendum

On Mon, 23 Oct 2000 14:51:07 -0700 jesse stephen bangs
<jaspax@...> writes:

> I've heard this rule, too, but I just thought of an obvious
> exception in
> English.  English has six dental/alveolar fricatives /T D s z S Z/
> but
> only four sounds that could reasonably be called stops /t d tZ dZ/.
> No
> matter how you slice it *some* set of fricative is gonna be
> orphaned,
> unless you make the silly assertion that /T D/ are the "same class"
> as /s
> z/.
What I am about to say may raise some controversy (which I love to do ;)
-- I do believe that English has alveolar sibilant affricates but doesn't
want to admit it:

/adz/ "adze"
/ad/ "add"
/az/ "as"

/sits/ "sits"
/sit/ "sit"
/sis/ "sis" (< "sister")

Which results in six fricatives for six stops/affricates. But there still
could be exceptions to what is obviously a "universal"; can't think of
any right now but always leave room for an exception...

DaW.