Re: Drifting phonemes [was: Re: The AmE 'o' sound]

From: Peter T. Daniels (grammatim_at_worldnet.att.net)
Date: 11/12/04 

Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 13:17:00 GMT

Bob Cunningham wrote:
>
> On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 22:19:03 GMT, "Peter T. Daniels"
> <grammatim@worldnet.att.net> said:
>
> > Bob Cunningham wrote:
>
> > > On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 17:39:07 GMT, "Peter T. Daniels"
> > > <grammatim@worldnet.att.net> said:
>
> > > [...]
>
> > > > > IPA [a] occurs in my idiolect only in diphthongs: [ai], my
> > > > > sound in "kite"; and [au], my sound in "cow".
>
> > > > I.e., his [a] and [A:] are both realizations of /a/, distinct from /&/,
> > > > and his claim that he cannot distinguish "[a]" from [&] is meaningless.
>
> > > Sometimes I suspect a lot of what Daniels says is nonsense;
> > > other times I know it is.
>
> > QED. He still has not grasped the concept of the phoneme.
>
> One thing Daniels fails to grasp is that there is no single
> "the concept of the phoneme". Or maybe he doesn't know the
> meaning of the word "the".

Under whose concept of the phoneme are the claimed phenomena
interpretable?

> Anyway, the fact (not the "claim") that I don't readily
> distinguish [a] from [&] is far from meaningless to me. Any
> line of reasoning Daniels cares to pursue through his foggy
> headbone that leads to a different conclusion is a reductio
> ad absurdum.

On the one hand, he states that [a] and [&] inhabit different phonemes.

On the other hand, he states he can't tell them apart.

Can someone explain how both statements can be accurate? 

-- 
Peter T. Daniels                       grammatim@att.net

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