Re: phonology of Plan B

What an interesting thread!

R A Brown, On 11/07/2007 09:24:
> And Rosta wrote:
>> R A Brown, On 08/07/2007 15:23:
>>
>>> And Rosta wrote:
> [snip]
>>>> and the alternatives that Joerg & Ray put forward fail to account
>>>> for the systematic equivalence of consonants and vowel phonemes.
>>>
>>> What???
>
> I asked 'what' because I did not understand what you meant. I see from
> below you are referring to a peculiar feature of Plan B's  _morphology_.
I don't agree that it is *morphology*. But more below.

> Part of the problem is, I think, exactly what we mean by 'phoneme'. I
> was using it to mean "The minimal unit in the sound system of a
> language, according to traditional phonological theories" [Crystal]. I
> thought it was clear that I have consistently been talking strictly in
> terms of phonology. This seems to be the case with Jörg also.
OK, so far we agree...

> I know that there are different definitions of 'phoneme' given by
> differing schools of linguists. But the variant allophones of a phoneme
> are IME normally considered to similar in some manner or other.
Well, as you say, there are different definitions & overlapping traditions and so
forth. I think (a) that the phonetic similarity of allophones is merely typical
of natural languages, and not criterial in establishing phonemicity &
allophony; and (b) that (a) is consistent with mainstream views in the
discipline.

(b) is, of course, not to say that you would be wrong to insist that I am wrong on
(a). But, firstly, I think that you might now on reflection find the 16-phoneme
analysis of Plan B less risible.

Secondly, phonological theories that do treat phonetic similarity as criterial for
allophony would tend to be 'cognitivist' (rather than 'abstractionist') and
very much focused on the phonology of natural language. Such theories would be
very unsuited to intrinsically unnatural engelangs like Plan B. Thus, Plan B,
by its nature, needs to be analysed in terms of an abstractionist model without
a bias to natlangs

>> I suspect we are working with crucially different assumptions about
>> Plan B (mine perhaps incorrect), so let me clarify this first. If
>> after this we still disagree, then I'll reply to your lengthy messages
>> in detail. ;)
>>
>> The crucial assumption I was making is that a morpheme can begin with
>> a consonantal or vocalic allophone, depending on which sort of
>> allophone the previous morpheme ends with.
>
> This is true.
>
>> So suppose the language ('Pentaphon') has 5 phonemes:
>>
>> /1/ [g, i]
>> /2/ [h, e]
>> /3/ [d, a]
>> /4/ [f, o]
>> /5/ [b, u]
>
> While I imagine a language in which [b] and [u] might be variants of the
> same phoneme, I find it difficult to see what [d] and [a] have in
> common, still less what [ej] and [S] has in common on Plan B.
Let's agree for the sake of argument that the (putative) allophones are phonetically dissimilar.

> Listing the morphemes as /1/, /2/, /3/ etc looks to me just a fudge.
> Normally (always?) when morphemes are given between slashes the
> character is a phonetic one that _broadly_ denotes the range of sounds
> the phoneme has in a particular language.
I've long held the view that phonemes should be symbolized by arbitrary symbols.
And there were some years a few years back when I, when teaching Intro to
Phonetics & Ponology, would use phoneme symbolizations based on spelling (such
as tend to be found in american dictionaries) rather than phonetic symbols.

Again I'd argue that tenability of using a broad phonetic representation as a
phonological representation is an accident of natural language. (--Because
there is scant chance for phonetically dissimilar allophony to come into being
and get learnt by children.)

>> -- Then a morpheme /123/ can be [ged] or [iha]. It's because of these
>> systematic equivalences that I think the 5-phoneme analysis is correct.
>
> We are here, surely, dealing with a _morphophonemic_ level of analysis.
> Morphophonemes are normally symbolized with upper case letters as, e.g.
> English {najF} which some posit as the morphophoneme of English _knife ~
> knives_.
>
> Yes, in Pentaphone one could consider that the morphophoneme {123} may
> be be realized as [ged] or [iha].
I confess myself a bit hazy about morphophonemics, since afaik it was largely
abandoned 50 years ago. My understanding is that morphemes are composed of
morphophonemes in order to account for phonologically-conditioned allomorphy.
In that case, {najF} wouldn't be an example, since the f:v alternation is not
phonologically conditioned. But Z (/s:z:@z/) would be an example, as would
suffix {iC}, where C is k:s (ethnic, ethnicity).

On the basis of that understanding, I really think Pentaphon is correctly
analysed in terms of phonemes & allophones, and not morphophonemes. There is no
warrant to see [ged]:[iha] as allomorphy, since this sort of alternation
affects every single morpheme in the language, in an entirely predictable way.

>> If, on the other hand, morphemes in the language ('Bogstandard') were
>> made up of strings of CV syllables, composed of one of 5 onsets and
>> one of 5 nuclei, I would not defend a 5-phoneme analysis.
>
> Notwithstanding your correct analysis of Plan B, it is still true that
> the morphemes of Plan B do consist of strings of syllables. One can
> quite easily derive a BNF representation showing the generation of valid
> strings in Plan B.
>
>> So, if Plan B is like Pentaphon, then I insist I'm right and you're
>> wrong.
>
> As I say, it depends how one defines 'phoneme'. Jeff Prothero does not
> use the term in his description of his language. It is also clear to me
> that he was not particularly interested in how it was pronounced, but
> simply a gave a ad_hoc scheme whereby a string of four-bit groups could
> be given a human pronounceable sound, without bothering what this might
> imply for phonological or morphophonemic analysis.
I quite agree. And therein lies a prime example of the theoretical interest of engelangs.

> But IMO treating
>  > /1/ [g, i]
>  > /2/ [h, e]
>  > /3/ [d, a]
>  > /4/ [f, o]
>  > /5/ [b, u]
>
> ... as five _phonemes_ merits the satire of Jacques Guy's "Plan C."
OK, so to summarize:

One can take either a concretist or an abstractist view of phonology, according to
the degree to which phonology has or lacks phonetic substance (and, by
extension, whether phonemes are phonetic generalizations over allophones).

You are a concretist, and think abstractism deserves satire. (I of course do not
feel slighted by this satire!)

I am an abstractist at heart. Both abstractism and concretism have a lot going
for them as ways of modelling natural language in human minds. But for an
unnaturalistic engelang, only an abstractist analysis makes sense.


--And.

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