--- In phoNet@yahoogroups.com, "wtsdv" <liberty@p...> wrote:
> If word and morpheme boundaries are ignored then there's
> no complementary distribution of /h/ and /N/, is there?
> Doesn't /N/ occur in the onset of the syllable in 'singer'
> [sI.NIN] and 'thing-a-ma-jig' [0I.N&.m&.d^z^Ig]?

Don't agree. I think 'Singing' is [sIN.IN]. This may be because it
alternates in my speech with [sIN.gIN], especially when
humming 'Singing in the Rain'! However one test is that one ought to
be able to pronounce syllables in isolation. (I've a feeling this criterion
has been used to predict foreign language acquisition problems by
Norwegians as well as by Englishmen. I've seen the English ability to
pronounce initial /Z/ attributed to words such as 'vision' /vI.Z&n/ and
the like.) Can you pronounce words beginning with [N]? If so, how
easy was it in the beginning? I've been trying on and off (sometimes
by necessity) to pronounce it in Thai for five years, and I still have no
confidence in what I produce. (I suspect my efforts are frequently
heard as [k] or [n], Thai lacking [g].)

There may be a problem with this test. Is 'city' ['si.ti] or ['sit.i]? I did a
quick scan of the hyphenation in the 'Sunday Times', and noticed that
short, stressed vowels do not get separated from the following
consonants. Perhaps the answer is to declare the [t] here as
being 'ambisyllabic'. Certainly the nearest I come to ['si] is ['si?]. (That
happens to be exactly what is wanted in Standard Thai - it has the
same rule about short stressed vowels having to be followed by a
consonant, if only a glottal stop. However, there the preferred analysis
is to have underlying [?] after apparently short open syllables and apply
a deletion rule in non-final word/phrase position for normal tempo. I
cite Fangkuei Li.'s sketch of Siamese.)

Even if you ignore syllabification, a minimal pair may be excluded by
other effects. /h/ is well nigh restricted to the onset of stressed and
initial syllables. /N/ is always always preceded by a short vowel. The
only exceptions I know are the onomatopoeic 'boing', which I can't find
in my dictionaries, and, dubiously, contracted participles such
as 'saying' /seIN/. I've produced rules on the allophonic distribution of
the allophones of */N/ (*/N/ being the alleged phoneme with
allophones [h] and [N]) and published them at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/14256 .

The best I can come up with is the near-minimal pair 'crummy house'
and 'coming out', but I don't think they're any more valid to use than
erecting a phoneme on the basis of the contrast between the somewhat
strained 'crummy nous' and 'comin' out' (or even the Standard
English 'come in out...'). Happy hunting!

Richard.