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Re: Phoneme Question

From:Eugene Oh <un.doing@...>
Date:Monday, August 6, 2007, 15:08
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