Re: Tehran/Mehran


"Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote...

> John Atkinson wrote:
>>
>> "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote...
>>
>> > Douglas G. Kilday wrote:
>> >>
>> >> "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote ...
>> >> >
>> >> > [...]
>> >> >
>> >> > H does not occur at the end of a syllable in English.
>> >> >
>> >> > (Just as N does not occur at the beginning of a syllable in
>> >> > English.)
>> >> >
>> >> > That's why [h] and [N] could be grouped into a single phoneme.
>> >>
>> >> In which case <longhouse> would contain a geminate phoneme, /lOhhaws/.
>> >
>> > No, a morpheme boundary intervenes.
>>
>> Hmm. I must have seen a hundred times, in texts explaining what
>> "geminate"
>> means, the example "bookcase".
>
> Alan Kaye insists he has a short [k] in that word.

Possibly in his internal lexicon it's a single morpheme? And that his
variety obeys the usual English rule: "No intramorphemic geminates".
(Which, if your definition of the term holds, reduces to "No geminates".)

> I remind you of the [ç] / /ç/ dispute of the 1950s.
>
> "ç" doesn't get to be a phoneme if morpheme boundaries are allowed to be
> considered, and the vote here seemed to be that in fact it isn't one.

I haven't heard of this particular dispute, but I think I get the drift of
what you're saying. Could you throw at me a few English words with [ç] --
putative /ç/ -- and maybe a minimal pair or two -- just to make sure I do?

>> >> What an idiotic way to reduce the phonemic inventory!
>> >
>> > And that's why no one did so. "Phonetic similarity" was also required.
>>
>> Which of course raises the eternal question, "How similar is similar
>> enough?"
>>
>> I notice in Tamsin Donaldson's book on Ngiyambaa (central-west NSW),
>> which I
>> just happen to have open beside me, that [e], [E], [@], [a], [V], [o],
>> and
>> [O] are all allophones of the same vowel, in different well-specified
>> environments.
>
> You mean, as in Arabic?

Take your word for it, being vastly ignorant of Arabic. And, no doubt, as
in a good many other two- and three-vowel languages.

John.


.

Quantcast