Re: A discourse on Phonemics (was: Re: E and e (was: A break

At 6:30 pm -0400 1/5/02, Roger Mills wrote:
>Tristan wrote:
>
>
>>On Wed, 2002-05-01 at 16:04, Raymond Brown wrote:
>>
>>[snippage]
>>
>>> But the phonemic theory (and _theory_ it is) is primarily concerned with
>>> contrasts and distribution of sounds.
>
>And it's well to keep in mind too that phonemes are something of an
>abstraction. One could just as well use funny symbols or numbers to
[snipped but read with care]
>
>I hope so.  By replying just to certain aspects, it's turned out to be sort
>of a hit-and-miss discussion.  Entire books have been written on the
>subject.
Thanks, Roger.  After a tiring day, I really enjoyed reading your helpful
and interesting mail.

It made a change from some of the more boring things I trailed through  :)
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At 7:04 pm -0400 1/5/02, Roger Mills wrote:
[snip]
>There's just
>no way to achieve perfection when describing an essentially imperfect thing,
>like language. The Gods see to it that we humans never quite achieve
>perfection.
How very true - and wouldn't life be boring if we achieved perfection  :)

Ray.

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