Re: [tied] Abstractness (Was Re: [j] v. [i])

----- Original Message -----
From: Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, June 06, 2003 12:01 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] Abstractness (Was Re: [j] v. [i])


> Why not? The two phones are in complementary distribution in Avestan and
do in fact there represent rule-governed realizations of /h/, IIr. /s/.

Richard has already made a similar point. We discussed the phenomenon of
"rhinoglottophilia" some time ago on the phoNet list. What I mean in the
present context is not that [h] and [N] are necessarily different in
phonemic terms, but that they are not combined into a single phoneme in
English (despite their complementary distribution) BECAUSE there are no
independently motivated rules relating them to each other (unlike the case
of [t] : [?] in British English), so their hypothetically allophonic status
can't be supported. One needs really compelling evidence to unite two phones
that are so different phonetically. The minimal pair test is not a
watertight criterion: English [h] and [Z] ("zh") don't contrast either
because of their defective distribution, while [N] and [Z] may be found in
similar contexts (e.g. <hanger> : <azure>) but accidentally fail to occur in
a minimal pair because of their rarity.

Piotr