Re: phonology of Plan B

And Rosta wrote:
> 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:
[snip]
>> 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.
What I meant is that if we found a language in which, for what ever
reason, a fieldworker had given the strange orthography for the language
I dubbed 'Rotakas C' in an earlier mail, I think both you and I would
wonder what he was up to. It is only - and I am speaking in terms of the
*surface level* - because there is a _consistent_, and not random,
contrast in the phones of the morphs that we realize there is, for
example, a consistent pairing of [raj] and [s] in the surface phonology
of Plan B as given by Jeff Prothero in his article of 9th May, 1990.

If we did not know the underlying structure and had only the spelling
system given us, we would consider a system in which |s| is sometimes
pronounced [s] and sometimes pronounced [raj] to be weird. It is only
when we notice that this alternation is consistent and not random that
we would realize that there was something underlying this pairing.

Now, of course, it is extremely unlikely that anything like the behavior
of Plan B would occur in a natlang, but if it did we would notice it not
be purely phonetic criteria but through its morphology also.

In the case of Plan B, we know the underlying structure which accounts
for this strange behavior at surface level.

[snip]
>
> 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.
Um - I think I would along with all of that except I have reservations
about "not criterial in establishing phonemicity & allophony." It has
often been pointed out that [h] and [N] are in complementary
distribution in English and some have from time to time claimed that the
two sounds are allophones of the same phoneme. The reason why this
generally rejected is that the ordinary 'person in the street' does not
feel them to be the same sound, i.e. there is no phonetic similarity
between the two.

The very word 'PHONeme' should IMO essentially refer to _sound_.

> (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.
I still hold that it is risible to analyze Plan B as having 16 phonemes.
What I concede is wrong is to be risible about Jeff Prothero in this
regard. He never asserted that his language has sixteen phonemes. In my
view Jacques Guy was being a little mischievous refer to "...er sixteen
phonemes."

It is clear that how the language is actually spoken was very much a
secondary consideration for Jeff. He wrote:
{quote}
The proposed syntax consists of:
* An alphabet.  "bcdf ghjk lmnp stvz" is suggested, but the
   choice is not critical.
* A pronunciation scheme which makes all sequences of
   letters equally pronouncable, thus decoupling the rest
   of the language design from the details of the human
   vocal tract.
{\quote}

If you look at
http://www.carolandray.plus.com/Loglang/PhonAndOrthog.html

you will see that:
* I have given Plan B an alphabet of "w y g k r l z s n ñ d t µ m b p" -
   Jeff clearly states "the choice is not critical."
* I have given that 'alphabet' a "scheme which makes all sequences of
   letters equally pronounceable."

I put 'alphabet' between quotes because, strictly speaking, it is now a
syllabary. But what I have done is, I submit, merely another valid
implementation of what Jeff states in his article. But my version does
not lead to:
(a) the creation of pairs of phonetically unrelated morphemes;
(b) does not produce an orthography in which each grapheme has a pair of
unrelated pronunciations.

Thus, it would seem to me, that (a) and (b) are not essential features
of Plan B; they are the accidental features of a particular (and IMO
rather ad_hoc) implementation. A different implementation would have
given very different results.

The underlying units of Plan B are the quartets of bits, and these have,
in themselves, nothing whatever to do with phonology. As I have shown,
they could be mapped into phones in quite different ways. To talk of the
quartets as "phonemes" is IMO wrong and misleading.

> 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.
Yes - agreed.

> 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
Plan B certainly needs some different analysis from natlangs. But, as I
have shown, the surface spoken form could be realized quite differently
and yet still adhere to the criteria Jeff laid down for his language.
Therefore, one must ask how meaningful it is to discuss the _phonology_
of Plan B. Can, indeed, Plan B be said to have a phonology? At best we
can discuss the phonology of the particular mapping of quartets to sound
given by Jeff in his article of 9th May, 1990. But, as Jeff also wrote"

"the particular letters and pronunciations chosen don't matter much."

This being so, how meaningful is it to talk of the phonemic inventory of
Plan B?

[snip]
>>
>> 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.
Sorry - I cannot agree that allophones will be as phonetically
dissimilar as [ej} ~ [S], or [a} and [d], any more than I would expect
[N] ~ [h]. If I find pairings of such dissimilar sounds, I would suspect
suspect that something other than phonemic allophony was going on.

[snip]
>
> 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.)
You mean, er, sort of because it doesn't exist    :)

[snip]
>> 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.
I too am hazy about morphophonemics; how largely it is abandoned or
accepted, I do not know. As I said in an email yesterday, my
understanding (which may be mistaken) is that among those who adopt
generative theories of grammar etc systematic phonemics has become the
standard way of accounting for phonological differences in grammatical
structures.

I can quite understand that by applying systematic phonemics to Plan B
you will probably arrive at a 16-phoneme analysis. As I said in my
previous mail, I suspect that that is your approach.

My approach has always been from the surface level of the actual
pronunciation of Plan B; and at that level, yes, I do hold that an
analysis of 16-phonemes is risible.

You hold that my approach is inappropriate for Plan B because it is an
engelang. I do not think that being an engelang per_se makes it
inappropriate, but I do now agree that it is inappropriate for the
reason I shall give below.

I hold that to apply systematic phonemics to Plan B is inappropriate
because strictly Plan B has no standard spoken form - "the particular
letters and pronunciations chosen don't matter much." I have shown that
Plan B could be very simply be implemented in a system whereby each
quartet has only _one_ phonetic realization and, therefore, the
morphemes also have only one phonetic realization.

Therefore, I now conclude that _both_ my analysis of Plan B as having 16
consonant phonemes, eight vowel phonemes, and the 'glide' /r/ is
mistaken, _and_ you analysis of 16-phonemes is equally mistaken. IMO we
are both analyzing a chimera    ;)

[snip]

>> 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.
I agree entirely on that point.

I think the differences between you & me over the "phonemic" analysis of
Plan B, show how applying natlang criteria to an engelang is not always
appropriate.

The basic units of Plan B are the quartets of bits. One can discuss
whether the ad_hoc system of mapping the bits to writing and to spoken
sound is a sensible one or not, but to discuss the phonology of Plan B
does not make much sense because, in the strict sense, it has no phonology.

>
> 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.
Not per_se - it depends what abstractionism comes up with. The arguments
between concretism & abstractionism are ancient. In the west the go back
at least to the Greeks of the 6th century BC. But when abstractionists
come up with theories that give a world picture (e.g. motion doesn't
exist) so at variance with common experience, then a bit of satire does
not come amiss.

An abstractionism that leads to the positing of [raj] and [s] as
allophones of the same phoneme does seem to me worthy of satire. Surely,
if such a position is posited it should signal that perhaps a more
meaningful approach should be taken. i.e. let us find out how such a
weird pairing came about.

I now maintain that Plan B, in its strictest sense, has no phonology and
that therefore it is not meaningful to analyze its phonology. What is
meaningful to discuss are the pros and cons of different ways of mapping
the fundamental quartets to a human-usable form.

>
> 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.
Probably depends to some extent on the engelang. it should, however, be
analyzed in terms of its structure, which is why I say that a
phonological analysis of Plan B is not appropriate. A phonological
examination might be made when comparing different mappings of the its
quartets to spoken form for human use, but that IMO is another matter.
-----------------------------

Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
 > Hallo!
 >
 > On Wed, 11 Jul 2007 17:58:30 +0100, R A Brown wrote in reply to Alex
Fink:

[snip]
 >>Yes, I don't think either I or And or Jörg disagree that that is
 >>essentially what is going on. The difference is on the _interpretation_
 >>of what is happening.
 >
 > Yes.  The question is not whether there is something that can manifest
 > either as [d] or as [a] (or whatever pair of consonant and vowel);
 > the question is whether this something ought to be called a 'phoneme'.
 > In my opinion, not, because it is *not a contiguous domain in the human
 > phonetic space*.  Actually, it is not something pronuncible or audible
 > at all - it is a *bit quartet* that is mapped onto *two distinct
phonemes*,
 > depending on whether its position number in the utterance is even or odd.

Exactly:
- [d] and [a] are "not a contiguous domain in the human phonetic space'
and, therefore, an analyst who pairs the two as a *single phoneme*
should ask if the analysis being used is an appropriate one. In the case
of Plan B, it is not, because:
- it is not something pronounceable or audible at all - it is a *bit
quartet.*

 >>
 >>Do you mean words or phonemes? The phonemes of Plan B can be of
 >>different length, but they must be a whole number of hex digits. Your
 >>system sounds rather more intricate   :)
 >

 > You surely mean *morphemes* (or words), not phonemes.

Yes - mea culpa    :(

[snip]
 >>But that is the point, isn't it? The allomorphs are completely
 >>phonetically unrelated.
 >
 > They are indeed.  There is nothing that /Soubout/ and /eiZeZru:/
 > have in common, except that they are reflexes of the same bit pattern.
 > But bit patterns fall outside the scope of phonology entirely.

They do indeed. Also as I have shown, Plan B could have been implemented
in such a way that they were no phonetically unrelated allomorphs.
[snip]
 >>The concept "phoneme" is an abstraction and not all linguists accept the
 >>phonemic theory or phonemic analysis. But it generally works well enough
 >>for the familiar European languages and we use it as a matter of
 >>convenience on this list and most of the time we more or less understand
 >>what each other means. I think the phoneme concept is a useful tool for
 >>the phonological analysis of very many languages.
 >
 >
 > Yes.  It works well with most natlangs, and also with naturalistic
 > conlangs that work like natlangs.  But even with such languages, things
 > are not always simple, as the controversy about the vowel systems of
 > Northwest Caucasian languages illustrates.  At any rate, phonology has
 > progressed beyond linear segmental phonology; not all theories proposed
 > are equally useful, but some phenomena (such as tones and vowel harmony)
 > can be very conveniently treated with non-linear models such as
 > autosegmental phonology.

Exactly. As an unashamed empiricist, I use 'phoneme' as in situations in
which it is a useful tool; but I will use other tools also when they
seem appropriate. In the case of a language composed of bit quartets,
phonemes are not exactly a useful tool   ;)

[snip]
 >
 > I am not very fond of generative grammar, either.  Some concepts make
 > sense, others do not.  I have the feeling that this way of describing
 > language has little to do with how language actually works.  Myself,
 > I follow a functionalist approach: language serves a purpose, and thus
 > everything in it has some more or less well-defined function, and form
 > follows function.

Yep - I'm much in agreement with this, tho I suspect And will not be.
But let's not start another thread on the validity or otherwise of
generative grammar!

[snip]
 >>That's the great thing about Conlangs - you have interesting things like
 >>Solresol & Plan B to keep you thinking  :)
 >
 >
 > Yes, these things are interesting.  Even to me, who otherwise is more
 > interested in naturalistic conlangs, with sound changes and all that.
 > That, too, is interesting enough; but it is always refreshing to deal
 > with an unnatural engelang - it teaches you not to take *anything*
 > in a language for granted.

Quite so. I think on this point you, I and And will be in complete
agreement   :)

--
Ray
==================================
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http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
Nid rhy hen neb i ddysgu.
There's none too old to learn.
[WELSH PROVERB]