Re: THEORY: phonemes and Optimality Theory tutorial

Carlos:
> And Rosta wabbe:
>
> > Suppose (for example) a language has A E I O U in stressed
> > sylls but only A I U  in unstressed sylls. A standard
> > phonemic analysis would recognize 5 phonemes /a e i o u/
> > and state phonotactic/prosodic constraints that exclude
> > /e o/ from unstressed sylls.
> >
> > But this misses the fact that there are 2 different sets of
> > contrasts, one for stressed sylls and one for unstressed
> > sylls, and there is no a priori reason to identify the
> > "/a/" of stressed sylls (which contrasts with 4 other
> > vowels) with the "/a/" of unstressed sylls (which contrasts
> > with 2 other vowels). Accordingly, the following 8 phonemes
> > should be recognized [in a move that radically departs from
> > the practice of actual phonemic theory]: /'a 'e 'i 'o 'u a i u/.
> >
> > Not, of course, that I think the 8 phoneme analysis is satisfactory.
> > But it is better than the orthodox 5 phoneme analysis.
[...]
> Well, as a non-linguist
Maybe 'amateur linguist' might be less excessively modest a hedge.

> I could analize this as
>   * Primitives: /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/
>   * In unstressed syllables there are neutralization and /i/ and /e/
> will both be realized as [i] and /o/ and /u/ as [u].  Wouldn't this be
> a correct approximation.
If phonemes are established on the basis of contrast alone, you have
no grounds for equating the /'a/ of stressed sylls with the /a/ of
unstressed sylls. To justify such an equation, you need to introduce
other evidence, which may or may not be persuasive. For example, /'a/
and /a/ might have identical phonetic realizations, and regular
phonological rules might give rise to a /'a/~/a/ alternation.

As for the neutralization, you are at the least introducing two extra
archiphonemes, /I/ and /U/, as Jesse said in a reply to this message.
And again, we need further evidence to justify taking /I/ and /U/ to
be supercategories of /i/+/e/ and /u/+/o/. For example, the allophonic
range of /I/ might cover that of /i/ and /e/, and regular phonological
rules might yield /i/~/I/ and /e/~/I/ alternations.

So in summary, your analysis can only be supported if there is
additional appropriate evidence to favour it over the one I gave (which
was based solely on the minimal data I presented). Furthermore, the
net difference is that my analysis has 8 contrastive elements and
yours has 7.

--And.