> Ed Heil wrote:
>
> > Then again, there's English, where the phoneme /D/ appears prety much
> > only in demonstratives and the definite pronoun.
>
> What? There's a whole raft of words that make some
> derivation based (sometimes just in part) based on the
> voicing of [T] to [D]:
>
> wreath [riT] : (to) wreathe [riD]
> breath [brET] : (to) breathe [briD]
> heath [hiT] : heath(en) [hiD@n]
> loath [louT] : (to) loathe [louD]
>
> And then then there was some rule way back when that
> changed (in one particular dialect of Southern British
> English) all -[dEr] to -[DEr], among which: "father", "gather"
> (and thus "together"), "rather", "smather" (I think).
>
> And even then, there are plenty of other words, like "there",
> "then", "bequeath", etc.
>
> But you're right insofar as it's not very productive as phonemes go.
>
> =======================================================
> Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
> ICQ#: 4315704 AIM: Deuterotom
> Website: <
http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
> "Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."
>
> Denn wo Begriffe fehlen,
> Da stellt ein Wort zur rechten Zeit sich ein.
> -- Mephistopheles, in Goethe's _Faust_
> ========================================================
>