Re: Allophone Problem

Clearly /e/ and /i/ are separate phonemes in complementary
distribution, just like English /h/ and /N/.  You can postulate a
different underlying representation of the vowel+coda complex that
manifests a single distinction in two different ways (same vowel but
different consonant in one case, different vowel with same consonant
in another), but at the phonemic level, I don't see any way to merge
/e/ and /i/.

On 6/6/07, Daniel Prohaska <danielprohaska@...> wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Joseph Fatula
> Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2007 11:51 AM
> "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?"
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
>
> As a nitpicker I would say, the question would be: "Is this a minimal pair
> (sg.)?"
>
> If [neva] and [niva] have separate meanings distinguished by the contrast
> [e] ~ [i] alone, then yes, this is a minimal pair and yes, [e] and [i] are
> distinct phonemes (at least in this particular environement).
>
> Dan
>
>
>

--
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>