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

--- Philip Newton <philip.newton@...> wrote:
(and Tristan McLeay also gave similar information):
>
> Phonemes are only relevant in a given language - if
> someone says "X
> and Y are phonemes in language Z", then that means
> that X and Y are
> considered different in that language. They may be
> considered
> allophones of the same phoneme in a different
> language W.
>
> So it doesn't make sense to say that "/t/ is a
> phoneme" without
> talking about a specific language.
Ah, great. In fact, I didn't know of that word "phone"
meaning just something like "utterable sound", that's
why I was using "phoneme" instead. Now I see better.
So let's reconsider the X-Sampa problem:

- X-Sampa refers to many and various languages, so
clearly one cannot say that X-Sampa handles about
"phonemes", but about "phones".

- nevertheless, every single X-Sampa character should
(at least in theory) refer to one real phoneme at
least in one particular natlang, meaning that this
phone is a distinctive phoneme in at least one known
language.

Is this right ? I hope so. To verify this, let's take
two contrastive examples about French (sorry that I
cannot remember the scientific names):

- in French, there is an "open o" and a "closed o",
although this very much depends of the area, of the
social and cultural level, etc. But I cannot see any
example where this distinction is relevant in meaning
(I may be wrong) : so these are simply phones, as far
as French is concerned. But in some other language,
these could be phonemes.

- in French, there is an "open e" and a "closed e",
and this is relevant in meaning: "sais" is something
different from "ses", or "ces", so these are phonemes
in French (and probably other languages).

So I have to come back to my first idea: since X-Sampa
concerns very many languages, including languages that
someone will never listen to in his whole life, it
seems vital that after the scientific definition
(alveolar, epiglottal, etc, etc), and the X-Sampa
character, and the computer code, there will be
detailed examples for several (I suggested about 12)
natlangs; so that one could see immediately whether he
is concerned or not for his own purpose, and what is
the phone like. And more, phones like, for ex, "s",
"z", "th", "sh", etc, should be grouped in a family
(archiphonetic) and then further detailed.

So we could see at once that, ex, "mild th" exists in
English and in Icelandic, but not in French; and "z"
exists in English and in French, but not in Spanish;
and yet, those phones being close to each other, if
you use one instead of another in a particular
language, it will not be catastrophic, people might
understand you after all.

For example, the French will often pronounce English
"the" as if it was "ze", while Germans will rather say
"de" (but if someone would say "re" or "ke", then
there probably would be trouble, because this is not
similar at all). Spaniards seem totally unable to
pronounce French "z" and "j", even when mastering
French language (they will say "s" and "y"); yet we
understand them, we just think "oh, this guy is very
likely Spanish". Alsacians might confound "d" and "t",
"b" and "p", etc. I myself usually pronounce Russian
"L" the French way (although I know I shouldn't !) and
this causes no problem. And some differences mentioned
in X-Sampa I just cannot figure at all, although
certainly some people (or measurement instruments, as
somebody suggested) will.




=====
Philippe Caquant

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


	
		
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