Re: A discourse on Phonemics (was: Re: E and e (was: A break in the evils of English (or, Sturnan is beautiful))

On Thu, 2002-05-02 at 08:30, Roger Mills wrote:
> Tristan wrote:
>
>
> >On Wed, 2002-05-01 at 16:04, Raymond Brown wrote:
> >
> >[snippage]
> >
> >> But the phonemic theory (and _theory_ it is) is primarily concerned with
> >> contrasts and distribution of sounds.
>
> And it's well to keep in mind too that phonemes are something of an
> abstraction. One could just as well use funny symbols or numbers to
> represent them-- say, / 1 / instead of /i/ and /2/ for /I/; then you would
> need a list of rules stating how /1/, /2/ are realized in their various
> environments.  (But all would agree that's unnecessarily abstract, though
> you still need the list of rules to describe "/i/" et al.)
>
> And keep in mind the definition of "phoneme"-- the minimal unit of sound
> that distinguishes meaning. So Engl. "beat, bit, bait, bet, bat, boot, boat,
> bought, but and (rare) bot(-fly)" are distinguished in meaning only by their
> vowel sounds; ergo, those vowels are phonemic.
>
> But the fact is that English distinguishes two types of  vowels at
> high/high-ish position (i,I, u,U), and two types at mid position (e,E,--
> though o,O are another matter).  As Ray says, phonemics is concerned with
> how these contrast and are distributed in the system; and very little
> concerned with their actual phonetic values-- that's a matter of production,
> and certainly varies individually, and can vary (considerably) regionally.
>
> Phonemics as developed in the 30s/40s was frankly (arrogantly,
> optimistically) based on Standard American and RP speech.  (Sorry to say,
> American linguists at that time were barely aware of Australian speech, and
> the Brits don't seem to have paid it much attention either.)  It turned out
> that with only minor tinkering with the rules of production, the same system
> could describe both varieties-- presence or absence of [r] being one of the
> problems-- but SA "beer" [bIr] vs. r-less and RP [bI@] could still be
> phonemicized /bir/ (in the iy:i system; /bIr/ in the i/I system), since the
> /-r/ comes back in phrasal "beer is.."; similarly with the diphthongs /ay,
> aw/, where the /a/ is [a] or [@] depending on dialect-- it's still phonemic
> /a/.  Generally speaking, the standard phonemic system could even describe
> Southern US, though with a lot more tinkering-- and southern speakers tended
> not to appreciate this "Yankee" idea.
>
> Ray:
> >> Maybe so.  But phonemically /i:/ ~ /I/ surely must suggest two components
> >> of contrast: hight of tongue & length, i.e. it implies four phonemes /i/
> ~
> >> /i:/ ~ /I/ ~ /I:/, which is not correct.
> Tristan:
> >No, it implies that both length and quality are distinguishing factors
> >in /i:/ ~ /I/.
> Yes, and that's not true.  Personally I've always considered the /i:/ vs /i/
> or /I/ system deceptive, for that reason; it simply substitutes the length
> mark for the glide; they both meant only that the higher vowel differed from
> the lower vowel _in some way_ -- perhaps this is wehre the tense/lax term
> came into being.  And the vowel of "beat" ?/bi:t/ [bit] is in fact
> phonetically shorter than that of "bid" [bI:d].
Not here it isn't. 'Beat' is noticeably longer than 'bit'. As far as I
can tell, the only vowels that have lengths altered by voicedness of
consonants here are /{/ and /3:/. And even with /{/, I'm not so sure
that there isn't a phoneme /{:/: when it's lengthened seems pretty
random.

> Ray:
> >> While phonetically the difference
> >> may be [i:] ~ [I] (tho some English dialects tend to diphthongize the
> first
> >> as [ij] or [Ij]), phonemically we have, as I see it, to choose between
> /ij/
> >> ~ /i/, /i/ ~ /I/ or even, possibly, /i:/ ~ /i/.
> Tristan:
> >Okay, maybe you have to look at it from my point of view. Which may be
> >entirely flawed, but still. [i:] is about as long as the [A:] in
> >'heart'. The vowel in 'heart' is distinguished from the vowel in 'hut'
> >by one thing: length.
>
> Not in quality too?? hut [hat] vs. heart [hA:t]?? Just guessing. If so, then
> phonemically you are only contrasting [low central] with [low back], with
> the length of the latter being predictable  (compensatory length due to loss
> of the _r_). But if not, if you truly have [hAt] vs. [hA:t], then there has
> been a merger, and a real change in your phonemic system.
Nup, not in quality. I think the vowel itself is about three-quarters of
the way towards the back (i.e. closer to [A] than [a]). At any rate,
it's not the same vowel American's use in either 'hot' or 'hut'.

> Standard US is [hVt] (IPA inverted-v) vs. [hart], maybe [hArt], r-less
> [ha:t] or [hA:t]--( frankly I'm vague on the US contrast a:A; I'm not sure I
> have it, or hear it well. [hat] or [hAt] for me is "hot").
> >
> >(This argument here might bring my entire argument down if I'm wrong. If
> >I am, I'll admit it.) Okay, so we've established we want to do /i:/ or
> >/ij/ versus blurp. According to your above examples, We must now choose
> >/i/. But the first part of the diphthong /I@/, in such words as 'beer',
> >has the same quality as that of 'bit' (at least to my ear). There exists
> >an allophone of /I@/ in contexts like 'beer is': [I:].
>
> Aha-- you've lost /r/ even in "beer is..."??
Err... no, it's still there. It's just a consonant after the length in
the vowel. I can't think of a contrast off the top of my head, but there
is a contrast between [I:r\] and [Ir\]. However, there is not a contrast
between [I:] and [I@]. (It's not exclusive to [r\] after the [I@], it
also happens in /I@l/ (from other English /i:l/): 'real' [rI@l],
'really' [r\I:li].)

The point of this was not to in any way argue that [I:] was phonemic,
just that /I/+length was not the same as /i:/.

> Well, not totally lost-- it's
> been replaced with the glide [@] (or length in the case of 'heart').  There
> are two problems going on here:  First, the neutralization of vowel
> contrasts before /r/ in all (?) varieties of Engl.-- in that case the choice
> of phonemic symbol is arbitrary, though most would use "phonetic similarity"
> as the criterion, and in this case the vowel before /r/ is "closer"to [I]
> /I/ or /i/ depending on system than to [i] /iy ~i:/, though phonetically it
> seems to be somewhere between [i] and [I].  And second, the subsequent
> replacement ("loss") of /r/ with a glide-- from a strictly phonemic POV,
> however, there is _still_ something there, whatever it's called.
Sorry, I'm not entirely sure what you mean there.

> (You may recall, a while back we went round and round on the nature of Engl.
> vowels before final /N/, where neutralization also occurs.  Some opted for
> tense /siyN/, others for lax /siN/ 'sing'; some for /hEN/, others /h&N/
> 'hang', etc.-- phonetically these are either "lowered [i]" or "raised [I]"
> for ex., though everyone agreed there was no contrast /siyN/ ~/siN/ i.e.2
> words with different meanings.)
Ah, yes. That. Although if it wanted to be, /sijN/ or /si:N/ or whatever
could be a word ;)

> So we could say "In Aust. Engl., /r/ is realized as a glide [@] in certain
> (specifiable) environments, as vowel length in certain others".
Actually, I think it'd be safer to say that /@/ was realised as [@] in
some conditions, and length in others, and that the /r/ came and went as
it pleased (because of the [I@]~[I:] before /l/ thing). Unless I'm being
confused.

> (IIRC some Southern US dialects  replace /r/ with a glottal stop in the
> pre-vocalic environment-- [bI:?iz] for 'beer is...'-- a somewhat stigmatized
> practice I think.)
I think a South African teacher I had last year did something like that.

> As I said, phonemics proved able to provide a unified explanation of
> Standard US and RP speech; it probably would not work for a highly divergent
> dialect (Yorkshire perhaps?) where there may have been mergers in the vowel
> system (a real change in the phonemic system), or really odd phonetic
> realizations of phonemes.  It's possible some varieties of Australian are
> heading off in that direction, but the fact that other Engl. speakers still
> understand most of you suggests you basically retain the same set of
> contrasts as the rest of us. Ergo, Australian Engl. can still be described
> as _phonemically_ the same as US/RP. Maybe! :-)
Well... exceptions do exist... We pronounce 'wrath' as /rQT/ for
whatever random reason.

And this description of US/RP English... what does it do with 'class'
/clAs/ but 'gas' /g{s/ versus /cl{s/ and /g{s/? Just call it an
exception?

> >If I'm wrong, do tell.
> You are not wrong.  It's just that Australian Engl. is a rather exotic beast
> to some of us....and we don't hear a lot of it (save for that strange man
> who mauls crocodiles on TV).
And he probably doesn't even speak proper Aussie. ;)

> >
> Always tell. I'm never trying to be stubborn, I'm
> >trying to help you help me.)
>
> I hope so.  By replying just to certain aspects, it's turned out to be sort
> of a hit-and-miss discussion.
Have I missed important things in my replies? Bring them up again if you
want.

> Entire books have been written on the
> subject.
I'm sure they have. Can you give any titles? They sound interesting ;)

Tristan

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