Allophone Problem
| From: | Joseph Fatula <joefatula@...> |
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| Date: | Wednesday, June 6, 2007, 9:52 |
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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?
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