Re: How to Make Chicken Cacciatore (was: phonetics by guesswork)

--- Philip Newton <philip.newton@...> wrote:
>
> Have you also understood the meaning of "allophone"?
Sure. It's a telephone that says "allo!" by itself, so
you don't have to do it. Anglo-Saxon phones of course
will say "hello !", that's why they're called
hellophones. Very handy :-)

Well, more seriously, I looked into my small
Dictionnaire de Linguistique, and things don't look so
simple. There seems to be two definitions of
"allophone", a narrow one and a broad one. For the
first case, the example given is Spanish "d", which
has 2 allophones, "a fricative one in intervocalic
position, like in 'nada', and an occlusive one when in
contact with a consonant or an absolute initial, like
in 'fonda'". (I understand what this means mainly
because I've already heard words like 'nada' and
'fonda'. What a good idea to give examples !)

Then the secund interpretation would be "any variant
of a phoneme, be it combinatory or free (stylistic,
social, personal)": this meaning that the number of
allophones is potentially infinite (which is exactly
what I thought, without using the term "allophone").
"All allophones have in common the relevant features
of a phoneme, but they diversify into non relevant,
more or less important, features".

Ah ! This is fundamental. In other words, phonemes are
discrete, countable values, while allophones are a
continuum; and phonematic distinction concerns
meaning, while allophonic distinction does not (even
if it seems that linguists are quarrelling about the
real definition of an allophone).

So it seems that a huge part of the discussions hold
on this list concerns allophones, which is clearly one
of the most peripheral part of linguistics, the very
surface of the orange (probably at the same level as
orthograph). When I write for ex "when I was in
Alsace, I used to pronounce "Nord" this way, but when
I moved to Paris, I modified it that way", I'm talking
about allophones. This really reminds me Moliere's
comedy, "Le Bourgeois Gentihomme", where Monsieur
Jourdain (the Bourgeois) suddenly discovers, thanks to
his professor, that he's been talking in prose
[opposed to: verse] all his life, and he didn't know
it.

Well, well. My next question of course would be: WHY
do people seem so fanatically interested in things
like allophones, while they are so many other exciting
topics in linguistics ? Looks like discussing the
external colour of the car instead of examining how
the motor works. The answer could be: it is much
easier, and more pleasant, to talk about such topics,
and give testimonies from your real life experience,
than for example discussing things like value of
cases, or aspects, or comparing verb constructions,
etc. - although this is also discussed, of course.
Topics like allophones are something very concrete,
while syntactic topics are harder, and semantic or
cognitive topics, even more abstract and difficult,
thus discouraging, especially after a hard work day.

OK ! Everything clear. Dammit, I myself was caught
talking about phonology while my real concern is
meaning. But anyway, it wasn't uninteresting.

(BTW: I understand that "Chicken Cacciatore" is what
we call "Poulet Chasseur").

=====
Philippe Caquant

"High thoughts must have high language." (Aristophanes, Frogs)


	
		
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