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

From: Bob Cunningham (exw6sxq_at_earthlink.net)
Date: 11/12/04 

Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 14:30:35 GMT

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 13:17:00 GMT, "Peter T. Daniels"
<grammatim@worldnet.att.net> said:

> 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?
 
Slippery Pete slithers again. Challenged as to the accuracy
of the usage "*the* phoneme concept", he deviously tries to
change the subject.

I challenged only the usage "the phoneme concept": I
wouldn't suggest another phoneme concept to cover the
"claimed phenomena" because I don't know what "claimed
phenomena" Daniels has in "mind".

> > 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.

That doesn't sound like something I would say. But if I
were to say anything about different phonemes in which [a]
and [&] have their abode, I would say it only about the
phoneme inventory of someone who has different phonemes for
the two. That they maintain dwellings in different phonemes
for a traditional nonrhotic Bostonian is demonstrated by the
contrastive pair "cart/cat". It can't be said of my
idiolect that [a] is in any phoneme, because so far as I
know, the monophthongal [a] doesn't exist there.
 
> On the other hand, he states he can't tell them apart.

I not only am not confident of being able to tell them
apart: if I had to demonstrate the sound [a] in a sound file
I would be unable to do so. I wouldn't know for sure how to
pronounce [a]. I suppose I could pronounce [&] and then
drop my tongue slightly and hope the result would sound
something like [a], but I wouldn't want to bet any of my own
money it would.

I once had a conversation with a lady who had been born in
Chicago and had spent most of her life there. I was curious
about some people's assertion that Chicagoans pronounce
"cot" like many of us pronounce "cat". I asked her to say
"cot", and it sounded to me like she said "cat". I made
several stabs at trying to imitate her sound, but she didn't
think I ever got close.

> Can someone explain how both statements can be accurate?

Before going to a lot of trouble to explain them, that
someone should take steps to see that I made those
statements. It's no doubt easy for a muddlehead like
Daniels to decide I made them, because he likes to imagine
things have happened in preference to remembering what did
happen.

If I were being careful what I said, I wouldn't make the
first statement without making it clear it applied only to
some individual's phoneme inventory. As for the second
statement, I wouldn't go so far -- when speaking carefully
-- as to say I *can't* hear the difference. On at least one
occasion -- and I hope more than one -- I've been careful to
say I'm not at all confident of being able to hear the
difference. 

-- 
Bob Cunningham, Southern California, USofA
Down with Miss Thistlebottom:  
Let's hear it for "like" as a conjunction!

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