Re: Phoneme Question

2007/8/6, John Vertical <johnvertical@...>:
>
> (I think you mean "16 consonants")
>
He means phonemic consonants.

(snip)

>
> Yeah, the thing is that you *can't* tell by this alone; too much
> complementary distribution. You'd need to test whether nativ speakers
> interpreted, say, [k@] as /t@/or /p6/ or /kU/. However, the triplets /cCI tI
> t@/, /Ji nI n@/ & /Li 4I 4@/ suggest that at least the 16-consonant analysis
> does not work. I would expect /cCI JI LI/ in that case... Also, [qu] strikes
> me as a bit surprizing, what with [u] being closer to [k]. If you want more
> distinction from [kU], why not [kw)u]? Or [?U] for the latter, for symmetry
> with [xu hU]?
>
> I'd *prefer*, OTOH, an analysis with 4 vowels and 8 consonants - merging the
> velars + labials as a "gravis" and the alveolars + palatals as an "acute"
> series; and merging /a 6 u U/ with /e @ i I/ resp. to have just ±tense & ±high.
>
> Actually, maybe gravis/acute could be better considered a suprasegmental
> feature here; you could whittle the numbers down to 4*4 then.
>
I think you've misread: the top line is orthographical. Only the
bottom line is phonetic transcription.

Eugene