Re: phonemes (was: 'noun' and 'adjective')

>Andreas Johansson wrote:
>>Quoting "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...>:
>>>Also, the idea that there are phoneticians who dispute the very
>>>existence of phonemes blows my mind. :)
>>
>>Our very own And Rosta is one of them, unless he's changed opinion without
>>telling me.
>
>Well, they don't exist, do they? As I understand it, they are strictly
>language-dependent abstractions. While the phoneme theory is quite useful
>in describing the way sounds are related in an individual language they by
>no means IMO tell the whole story.
>
>--
>Ray
AIUI, the concept of "allophone" / "reoccuring sound" is meanwhile quite
sound (pun not intended), isn't it? Ie grouping complementarily distributed
ones into phomenes is where it starts to get theoretical. I even have a
phonology sketch to prove this point; here're the allowed CV combinations
where C is voiced, oral and central:
[vi j\i bi J\i dz\i]
[By Zy]
[wY]
[ji\ Gi\ gi\ di\ zi\]
[Bu Gu bu gu Zu du dZu]
[ve j\e be J\e dz\e]
[v@ w@ j@ G@ b@ g@ d@ z\@ z@ dz\@]
[GE gE dE zE]
[BO RO bO G\O ZO dZO]
[j& z\& dz\&]
[va Ra ba G\a da za]
[wQ]
There is a certain logic to the system, but it is not one based on phonemes
in the usual sense. If anyone's interested in constructing a similar
non-phonemic appearence, I can explain further.

John Vertical

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