Re: Phonemes

"John Atkinson" <johnacko@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in news:3YTse.21632$F7.1453
@news-server.bigpond.net.au:

>
> "Ruud Harmsen" <realemailseesite13@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:6v96b11cqakifa33nauj1gid3vif4k75na@xxxxxxxxxx
>> Fri, 17 Jun 2005 18:42:55 GMT: "Peter T. Daniels"
>> <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>: in sci.lang:
>>
>> >David Wright Sr. wrote:
>> >>
>> >> What language has the largest known number of phonemes and how many
>> >> does it have?
>> >>
>> >> Has any work ever been done to determine a theoretical maximum?

(snip)

> You can see that a language which combined clicks with Caucasian-type
> secondary articulations would end up with maybe a thousand or two
> different phonemes. Even this would be far below the "theoretical
> maximum".
>
> John.

Thank you. I remember very little of my training in phonology, so I
understood very little, but I appreciate it.

Do you think that all of those variations would be sufficiently different
to a hearer under normal speech conditions that they really would be able
to serve as phonemes? I am not saying that they couldn't. I am just
interested in knowing.

Again Thanks

--
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.