Re[8]: [tied] Re: [pieml] Labiovelars versus Palatals + Labiovelar A

At 6:10:34 PM on Sunday, November 2, 2008, Arnaud Fournet wrote:

> From: "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...>

>> At 2:42:07 PM on Sunday, November 2, 2008, Arnaud Fournet
>> wrote:

>>> From: "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...>

>>>> I don't much care what you can check: you're the one
>>>> who tends to be sloppy about accurately representing
>>>> sources, not I. But since one of the references
>>>> happens to be ready to hand, I'll throw you a bone:
>>>> Martin Harris, 'French', in Martin Harris & Nigel
>>>> Vincent, eds., _The Romance Languages_.

>>> P211 "complex vocalic nuclei".

>> P. 214: 'French has three glide phonemes, /j/, /w/, and
>> /turned-h/.'

> P211.
> The author, which I remind you is your own choice,
> mentions explicitly that the presentation that follows is
> what he considers the best _interpretation_ (sic)

So? All phonemic analyses are interpretations of the data.
I already pointed that out. So did Peter. And one
certainly hopes that their authors consider them the best
analyses.

> I cannot see any reason why he accepts the vocalic
> interpretation of the prevocalic glides as vowels for
> pre-Modern French

I see no evidence that he does. On the contrary, he takes
OFr. /oi/ and /ie/ to have been diphthongs, not glide+vowel
combination.

> and suddenly decides this vocalic interpretation should be
> discarded for Modern French !?

> On what grounds ??

Continuing the quotation from p. 214:

While these are clearly related historically to the three
high vowels /i/, /u/ and /y/ respectively and may at times
be in morphophonemic alternation with them, within
contemporary syllable structure they behave more like
consonants than vowels, for instance in precluding
liaison, thus /lejOt/ rather than */lezjOt/ for <les
yachts> 'the yachts'. Note also such pairs as /uj/
<houille> 'coal' and /wi/ <oui> 'yes'.

In case you miss the point: if the glides are merely
allophones of the high vowels, then these non-homophones are
both phonemically /ui/.

[...]

>> [snip non sequitur in re Pope]

> As you can't prove your previous statements
> you prefer giving up,

I prefer not wasting time responding to non sequiturs.

Since it's clear that you still don't understand why I
mentioned that passage in the first place, I'll spell it out
for you. I am NOT making any claims about Pope's view of
French phonemes. It is simply evidence that the phonetic
basis for an analysis with glides was in place by the 16th
century.

Brian