Re: A discourse on Phonemics (was: Re: E and e (was: A break
| From: | Roger Mills <romilly@...> |
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| Date: | Friday, May 3, 2002, 4:40 |
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John Cowan wrote:
>
>No, Tristan is perfectly correct: "heart" and "hut" are [ha:t] and [hat].
>Australian English has no low back vowels at all, and the length of [a]
>is phonemicized. (This on Nick Nicholas's authority.)
>
Accepted. That would appear true for Aust., in isolation. The question
would then be, is the length _always_ a subsitute for a lost /r/ in the env.
V__C, where it could indeed be lost irretrievably. If so, that would
suggest /r/ or at least "something" is still there underlyingly. Or has
Aust. phonemicized length in other, non-r, environments? That would be
interesting.
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