Re: Long and short allophones of a phoneme? [was: Re: "The phoneme concept" [was: Re: Claims [was: Re: Drifting phonemes [was: Re: The AmE 'o' sound]]]]

From: M. Ranjit Mathews (ranjit_mathews_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 11/15/04 

Date: 15 Nov 2004 05:19:21 -0800

Jacques Guy <jguy@alphalink.com.au> wrote ...
> French textbooks did emphasize
> the difference between [E] (mettre) and [E:]
> (maître)

Perhaps Frenchmen consider these the same vowel in 2 lengths, but to
me, they sound like different vowels, possibly because in Hindi, ...
your [E] is an allophone of /a/ and pronounced [E_] (retracted [E])*
whereas ...
your [E:] is an allophone of /aI/ and pronounced [&_:] (long retracted
[&])** ...
but also as [&_] (short retracted [&]) in English loanwords like
"bank".

* seems the same as <a> in Hindi pronunciation of <muhAmmad>
** French "pain" seems to rhyme with Hindi "main" [mE~:]

> but never mentioned that length was
> significant with other vowels too.

... and diphthongs? Eg., <oi> in reconnoitre vs. revoir.
... and consonants? Eg., longer [r"] in <Rouen> vs. shorter [g"] in
<rose>*
The list can go on; where does draw the line and decide that one has
identified enough phonemes and need identify no more of them?
Such phonetically significant differences are noticeable but which of
them is also phonemically significant is difficult to tell without
intimate knowledge of French.

* Perhaps the latter seems short to me because it seems assimilated
into the [O:] whereas the former seems long because it seems more
trilled (i.e., not as fricative) and seems like it precedes [u] rather
than being assimilated into [u].

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