Re: Phonology - Allophone presentation?

On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 1:21 PM, Aidan Grey <taalenmaple@...> wrote:

> Simple question:
>
> When presenting a phonology, are ONLY minimal pairs included in the IPA
> table standard? Or should every possible phoneme be included, with
> explanatory remarks later?
>
> I have allophonic variation between /i/ and /I/ - the lax vowel /I/ is an
> allophone of /i/ before geminate consonants. So, for example, the difference
> between 'seen'  and 'sin' would be represented as /sin/ and /sIn:/, or <sin>
> and <sinn>, respectively.
>
> Do I include /I/, or just note it in the details?

Well, it's your language and your description. But my preference is to
include statements about allophony in the description of the language (due
no doubt to my being a phonologist by profession), much as you've outlined
above; this is also the practice of those writing descriptive grammars in
the American Structuralist tradition. Typically, the phonology section of
such a grammar will have an inventory of phones (not just the phonemes); a
list, with examples, of major phonetic processes (= allophony); statements
concerning phonotactics--syllable structure, (dis)allowed consonant
clusters, etc; and stress. There will often be a section on
morphophonemics--the alternation of phonemes due to morphological
processes--but that will of course depend on the nature of the language
being described.


> Aidan
>
Dirk
--
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