Re: THEORY: phonemes and Optimality Theory tutorial

Jesse:
> And Rosta sikayal:
> > Jesse:
> > > dirk elzinga sikayal:
> > > > the phoneme--whatever its definition--had the following properties:
> > > >
> > > > 1)      it was segment-sized; that is, it was not decomposible into
> > > > features, prosodies, or elements (though it was characterized by
> > > > having certain properties such as labiality, voicelessness, etc);
> > > >
> > > > 2)      it was the unit of speech which enabled the expression of
> > > > opposition and contrast, and it was embedded in a system organized by
> > > > such oppositions and contrasts;
> > > >
> > > > 3)      it was part of representations which uniquely determined
> > > > phonetic forms; likewise, phonetic forms were analyzable into
> > > > sequences of phonemes (this is the Biuniqueness Condition).
> > >
> > > These all describe the classical phoneme, which no one is defending.  To
> > > me, the failures of these descriptions isn't evidence for the death of the
> > > phoneme, but proof for a need of the redefinition of a phoneme.
> >
> > Clearly the statement "The phoneme is dead" is truth-evaluable only
> > if "phoneme" is defined. In my view, you can dispense with (3) and get
> > something still resembling mainstream phonemics, you can dispense with
> > (2) and get something unmainstream but still phonemic, but once you
> > dispense with (1) there is no basis for calling what you're left with
> > a "phoneme". If *segments* are no longer the primitives of phonological
> > representation, and if they don't even enjoy any kind of privileged
> > status, then calling this "phonemic" is merely an abuse of terminology.
>
> However, *every* theory that I've seen, ever has *something* to start
> with, something on the lowest level.  Whether it's the underlying form for
> transformations, or the phoneme, or whatever it is that is at the bottom
> of OT (I *still* don't understand it), there's a basic sound unit that
> everyone says exists somewhere.  And that's what I call the phoneme.
Either you're claiming that these basic sound units are segment-sized, or
else you're abusing the term "phoneme", which I'm not complaining about;
you just need to realize that redefining the phoneme as you do does not
refute the claim that the phoneme is dead.

As for the segment-sized nature of phonemes (though we ought to remember
that phonemes could be sequences of phones), phonology today would see
a phonological form as a kind of tree with phonetically-interpretable
features attached to terminal and nonterminal nodes in the tree. The
'basic sound units' would presumably be the phonetically-interpretable
features.

> Now I realize that this is hedging my bets, and I'm admitting defeat,
> somewhat.  The problem is that I've so far subscribed to the "Jesse
> Bangs" school of linguistics, which means that I take whatever parts I
> like out of the books I read and string them together.  So I wedded
> transformational theory to classical phonology and got a new version which
> I used, and then I added feature marking, and prosodies, and now some
> optimality theory.  And I still have what I call "phonemes."  I suppose I
> should be less sloppy with my terminology when working with people other
> than myself, but essentially no matter what theory you throw at me I'm
> still going to call something there a phoneme, just because I'm used to it
> and that's the way I think.
No problem (except maybe for you? -- I too sometimes forget I operate with
idiosyncratic definitions of grammatical terms and accordingly misinterpret
the claims of others using terms differently from me).

--And.