Re: [tied] Nominative: A hybrid view

On Thu, 22 May 2003, Glen Gordon wrote:

>
> Jens:
> >Just this thing for the minute: How frequent a phoneme is /z/ in English
> >outside of endings where it is hyperfrequent?
>
> Would it be rude to call this a dumb question?
>
> Notice how the English plural is written /-s/. That's because the English
> plural was historically pronounced [s] once. In other words, in the case
> of the plural, just as in my new hybrid theory, [z] is an allophone of [s]
> which still occurs in words "colts", "shops" and "monthes".

English [z] is not in allophonic variation with [s], not even
word-finally. The two are opposed to each other in hence : hens, once :
ones, pence : pens, tense : tens (of thousands), scarce : scares, pierce :
peers, fierce : fears, lice : lies, lace : lays, pace : pays. In
practically all of these and others I can think of /-z/ is morphematic,
while /-s/ is a radical element. Now, elsewhere /z/ has a markedly lower
frequency than /s/, so this is indeed a misbehaving language judged by the
standards you set up. Well, if English is permitted to fool around, why
not pre-PIE?

>
>
> >And what about /th/ (thorn) which is the ending of ordinals (and used
> >to mark the 3sg of the present)?
>
> Irrelevant. Unlike [z], the fricative [T] is inarguably widespread in
> English.
> Eg: "thick", "thin", "month", "thistle", "thong", "math", "Athena"...
> ... et cetera ad nauseum ad infinitum.

I do not think it is true that fricative [T] (thorn) is of such a high
frequency that your principles would permit its being used as a word-final
morpheme in the language. And since it is, the principles must be wrong.

>
> >How well-founded is the principle that is being invoked here?
>
> Very well, thank you.
>
>
>
> >Now, as we go back in time, we have no knowledge for most of the
> >individual occurrences of sibilants whether they were earlier voiceless or
> >voiced.
>
> Voiceless sibilants are more common than voiced ones and it is unheard
> of for a language to have only voiced sibilants without voiceless ones or
> to have MORE voiced sibilants than voiceless ones. Your objections are
> without basis as usual.

Again, this is not a relevant objection. I am not suggesting that /z/ was
ever *more frequent* than /s/ in the prehistory of PIE, let alone that it
was the *only* sibilant of the language; I am merely saying they both
existed, as separate phonemes which later coalesced. It would be much as
in the many IE languages where the voiced aspirates fell in with the
voiced unaspirated stops by loss of the once-distinctive feature. For
sibilants I would guess it has actually taken place in Spanish, but I am
outside of my field there. There is certainly nothing revolting about a
merger /s/ : /z/ => /s/.

Jens