> 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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