----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2000 9:43
PM
Subject: Re: [phoNet] Assimilation of
English consonants
Should English transcriptions avoid the word-final digraph when
the final s is a verb inflection or a plural? In my head, such
an orthographic S would be mapped separately from the preceding
orthographic T.
Umm. I'm asking, I think, if IPA transcription acknowledges such
grammatical nicetities.
That's what I said. The English /t+s/ sequense
is biphonemic. Unfortunately the IPA ligature is confusingly difficult to
distinguish from [t s]. Some phoneticians prefer a raised fricative
symbol when symbolising affricates (a reasonable solution; I don't know why it
hasn't been adopted by the International Phonetic Association as obligatory
yet). The Polish contrast between genuine affricates and stop-plus-fricative
clusters demonstrates that the need to distinguish the two is of practical
importance.
Piotr