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Re: THEORY: phonemes and Optimality Theory tutorial

From:And Rosta <a.rosta@...>
Date:Sunday, November 12, 2000, 16:40
John Cowan:
> On Sat, 11 Nov 2000, And Rosta wrote: > > > * The structural/prosodic/syntagmatic properties of segments are > > not treated as defining features of phonemes, despite the fact > > that different structural/prosodic/syntagmatic positions support > > different sets of contrasts. In other words, if you wanted to > > insist on defining contrastive *segments*, there should be > > separate inventories of such contrastive segments for each > > separate structural/prosodic/syntagmatic position. > > It may be the disordered state of my brain, but I can't make heads or > tails of this. Can you unpack it a bit, preferably with examples?
Sorry. Suppose (for example) a language has A E I O U in stressed sylls but only A I U in unstressed sylls. A standard phonemeic 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. This is of course just one example. But it's not exotic. --In English, the contrasts in stressable and unstressable syllables are different, and the contrasts in onsets and codas are different. FWIW, I would analyse the above system along the following lines: * Primitives of segmental content are A, I, U. * E and O are made by simultaneous A+I and A+U. * The ability of A to combine with I/U is a property only of stressed syllables. ["Tier separation"] --Abd.