Re: Your first "linguistic" memory

Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>
> Thu, 12 Jan 2006 15:58:15 GMT: "Peter T. Daniels"
> <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>: in sci.lang:
>
> >> Speakers (if not linguistically knowledgeable) will say they are
> >> different, yet they are the same, and any difference there might be is
> >> not phonemic. Now what?
> >
> >We just had two or three people tell us they sound the same.
>
> Yes, but they are linguistically knowledgeable, being reading here.
> Ask people in the street. They will all give the wrong answers,
> because the script comes into play. And there may not be enough
> illitterates left for reliable testing.

Labov likes to play tiny extracts -- a single word -- and ask people
what the word is. He does it to illustrate the Northern Cities Shift,
since the word is unidentifiable in isolation but perfectly clear in a
context as short as a few-word phrase.

That technique could clearly be used in this case.

> >> The idea that phonemes can be found by asking native speakers what is
> >> and isn't the same is shaky in practice.
> >
> >So you still really have never read a single introduction to descriptive
> >linguistics.
> >
> >You have never heard of "minimal pairs"?
>
> I have. But wasn't it you who said that modern phonemic theory no
> longer relies on that?

There is no such thing as "modern phonemic theory"; "phonemes" are not
discussed in modern phonological theory.

I, however, as I have made abundantly clear over the years, do not do
modern phonological theory.

> >Or maybe you _still_ don't know what "phoneme" means?
>
> Sigh. I know what "phoneme" means since I first accepted the idea,
> back in 1973 or so. Why do you keep insisting I might not?

Because you consistently write things like the above that suggest you
don't.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@xxxxxxx
.

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