Re: Allophone Problem

-----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?"

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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

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