Re: Uusisuom (phonemic????)

At 2:37 pm +0100 3/4/01, Daniel44 wrote:
>What does 'phonemic' mean exactly?
>
It's probably helpful to contrast phonetics with phonemics.  Phonetics
deals with all the many, varied sounds (phones) made by humans, especially
in speech.  The phonetics of a language will be an inventory of all the
sounds recorded in that language which will inevitably vary - often quite
considerably - from dialect to dialect and even between speakers of the
same dialect.

Phonemics deals with all the _contrasting sounds_ which make up the sound
system of a particular language, which will be far fewer than the actual
range of sounds and will often be the same for many (sometimes all )
dialects.

Sounds which contrast in some languages, i.e. are different _phonemes_ in
those languages, may not contrast in another and simply be regarded as
variations of a single phoneme.  For example, in English initial, voiceless
plosives (or stops), i.e. /p/, /t/ and /k/ are aspirated, i.e. phonetically
[p_h], [t_h] and [k_h], so, for example _tick_ is pronounced [t_hIk].  But
if these plosive come after /s/ they lose their aspiration, so, e.g.
_stick_ is [stIk].  Now, most English speakers regard the sound of /t/ in
_tick_ and _stick_ as being the same sound.  In English the difference
between aspiration & non-aspiration is not contrastive (there is no English
words [tIk] & [st_hIk] - indeed, most would find these diffcult to
pronounce); the two different phones are said to be _allophones_ of the
single phoneme /t/.

But in some languages, e.g. Ancient Greek, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Scots
Gaelic, Zulu, Xhosa, aspirated and non-aspitated voiceless plosives are
constrastive; /th/ and /t/ are two different phonemes  E.g. in Mandarin:
dai4 [tai] = to take, to lead  (4 denotes a falling tone)
tai4 [thai ] = too, also

Note: / / are used to enclose phonemes; [ ] are used to enclose phones.

Single letters are shown by enclosing them between < > - but as these may
be misinterpreted if reading mail through a browser, many (including
myself) prefer to use { }.

Now as far we can see in Uusisuom, there seems to be a contrast between
{uu} and {u}, i.e. they are two different phonemes.  We have been assuming
that the first is a long sound /u:/ and the second is shorter /u/.  In some
languages vowel length is phonemic (e.g. classical Latin, Hungarian,
Finnish, ancient Greek, Japanese), but in others it is not (e.g. modern
Greek, Italian, Spanish).  In Uusisuom it appears to be phonemic but it
appears that some vowels, e.g. {y} = /U/ cannot be lengthened.  We are not
clear about the complete vowel system of Uusisuom.

A gemminate consonant is one which is actually pronounced double.  In
English we often write double consonants, but we never pronounce them
doubled (or geminate) - except in odd words like _pen-knife_ and many even
use a single /n/ there.

But in Italian and Finnish, if a consonant is written twice, it is
pronounced as it is written, i.e. one holds onto the consonant for twice
the normal time, it is lengthened or _geminated_.  Italian _fato_ /fato/
(fate, destiny) is not said the same way as _fatto_ /fatto/ (act, deed,
fact).  The _tt_ constrasts with _t_ - they are two different phonemes.

We have noticed that Uusisuom often has doubled consonants.  We have
assumed, since we have not been told differently, that they are not
irregular spellings (as they would be in English) but that are being used
as in Finnish or Italian, i.e. the denote geminate consonants which have
phonemic status in Uusisuom.

I hope this helps understand what is meant by phonemic, and also helps to
pin-point one or two features of Uusisuom we are not certain about so that
you can either confirm that we've got things right or put us right if we
haven't.

Ray.




=========================================
A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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