Re: new(?) phoneme discovered

On 11/03/06, Paul Bennett <paul-bennett@...> wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> >From: René Uittenbogaard <ruittenb@...>
> >Today, while driving to work, I accidentally discovered a new phoneme.
> >It appears to be possible to make a voiceless whistling sound between
> >the glottis.
>
> What, no Phoneme Nazi replies? Okay, I'll bite.
>
> *fumes* It's only a phoneme if it occurs contrastively in a known language!!!! GRAR!
*fumes* It's only a phoneme if it occurs contrastively in a given
language, and then it's only relevant to that given language! (Where
by language, I mean phonology, really.)

In (southern) Australian English there is no phoneme /u:/. However,
[u:] occurs as an allophone of the phoneme /u\:/ if the next sound is
/l/. Swedish has both the /u:/ and /u\:/ as distinct phonemes. But
with your definition, there would be a phoneme /u:/ in AusE in spite
of the fact that it is not contrastive.

On 11/03/06, Paul Bennett <paul-bennett@...> wrote:

> Interesting thought: Is there a terminological distinction possible and/or needed
> between natphonemes and conphonemes?
No. Given that all phonemes are relevant only in a given phonology, it
doesn't matter whether the phoneme is a unique phoneme of Mandarin
Chinese, a dialect of a language spoken by three elderly women in a
village that I've never heard of, or someone's conlang. It's all the
same: in a conlang, a phone can be unused, an allophone or a phoneme;
in a natlang, a phone can be unused, an allophone or a phoneme. Just
like there's no reason for a separate word for the nominative case in
conlangs!

Assuming I make sense :)

--
Tristan