Re: THEORY: phonemes and Optimality Theory tutorial

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.