Re: Introductions and a question about consonants

Peter Clark scripsit:

>         Well, how do you pronounce "thick"?  [TIk]?
Yes.

> If so, then why can't you say that
> its a phoneme? You would have a minimal pair of [TI~k] vs. [TIk], yes/no?
Because it's unparsimonious.  It makes more sense to treat [I~] as a
realization of underlying [In] when a final stop follows.  I say
"thinking" as [TINkIN], after all.

In Polish, IIUC, all five vowels can be nasalized, but this never contrasts
with oral vowel + m/n except in final position, where only [E~] and [a~]
can appear.  Consequently, there are only two nasal phonemes, not five.

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