Re: Allophone Problem

Joseph Fatula wrote:
> David J. Peterson wrote:
>> Joseph wrote:
>> <<
>> I'm having a problem analyzing the phonemes of a language.  The sound
>> [e] only appears before voiceless consonants, while [i] can appear in
>> any other environment.  This leads me to think that they're
>> allophones of each other, except for the following problem.
>> Voiceless fricatives become voiced between vowels, yet the [e] in
>> such cases remains unchanged:
>>
>>   - [nef] > [neva]
>>   - [niv] > [niva]
>>
>> Among words with the "-a" suffix, this [e] vs. [i] distinction is the
>> only thing showing the difference between words like [neva] and
>> [niva].  Are these minimal pairs?  Are [e] and [i] separate phonemes?
>> >>
>>
>> Based just on what you told us, I'd say that /e/ and /i/ are
>> separate phonemes, and that the voiceless phenomenon you
>> witnessed is simply an accident.
>>
>> Of course, we've only seen two pieces of data...
>>
>
> I could give you quite a bit of data on this one, but it all follows
> pretty much the same pattern.
>
> - [tes] > [teza]
> - [tiz] > [tiza]
> - [kef] > [kiva]
> - [kev] > [keva]
Okay, that was backwards.  Let's try again:

- [tes] > [teza]
- [tiz] > [tiza]
- [kef] > [keva]
- [kiv] > [kiva]

That's better.