Re: Romanized Orthography of My Conlang

"Grandsire, C.A." wrote:
> What are /2/ and /9/ then? Can I call them allophones even if the native
> speaker feels they are not the same sound but they are still in
> complementary distribution?
Well, in English, [V] and [@] are in complementary distribution, [V]
used in stressed syllables, [@] in unstressed.  Nevertheless, they sound
different to many people; indeed, dictionaries usually indicate them
with different characters in giving the pronunciation.  However, part of
that may be that other vowels are collapsed into /@/ when unstressed (as
in pairs like /d@'mAkr@si/ - /"dIm@'kr&tIk/, where the /A/ of
"democracy" is collapsed to /@/ when the stress shifts, and the /&/ of
"democratic" is realized as /@/ when the stress is shifted).

It reminds me of something I read about Quechua, where [e] and [i] are
allophones (same applies to [o] and [u]), but written as tho they were
phonemes.  But in that case, it's because of the Spanish influence.
Literate Quechua-speakers are usually heavily exposed to Spanish,
wherein /e/ and /i/ are distinct phonemes.  So, altho [e] and [i] are in
allophonic distribution ([e] and [o] occur when adjacent to /q/, IIRC),
they are perceived as distinct sounds, and thus written as such.

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