Re: phonology of Plan B

R A Brown, On 08/07/2007 15:23:
> And Rosta wrote:
>> Joerg & Ray concur that Plan B does not have 16 phonemes with
>> consonantal and vocalic allophones:
> [snip]
>>
>> To my eyes, the most sensible analysis of Plan B is the 16-phoneme
>> dual-allophony one. It's the analysis you get if you apply basic
>> principles of contrastiveness;
>
> In the words John McEnroe (with similar intonation & gestures): "You can
> not be serious!"
>
>> and the alternatives that Joerg & Ray put forward fail to account for
>> the systematic equivalence of consonants and vowel phonemes.
>
> What???
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.

So suppose the language ('Pentaphon') has 5 phonemes:

/1/ [g, i]
/2/ [h, e]
/3/ [d, a]
/4/ [f, o]
/5/ [b, u]

-- 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.

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.

So, if Plan B is like Pentaphon, then I insist I'm right and you're wrong. But if
Plan B is like Bogstandard, then I withdraw my previous remarks about Plan B,
and acknowledge the correctness of what you and Joerg had said about it.

--And.

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