--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, John Cowan <cowan@...> wrote:

> Marco Cimarosti scripsit:
>
> > One wonders if such a phoneme exists in *any* variety of

English...

>
> It definitely does in my idiolect and in that of the many North

Americans

> who pronounce "garage" as [g@'rAZ], rather than [g@'rAdZ] or

['g&ridZ].

> I can't think of a full minimal pair between /dZ/ and /Z/ offhand,

but

> "garage"-"Rodge"/"Raj" ("Rodge" is a hypocoristic form of "Roger")

comes

> close.
>
> > if [??] is a phoneme, why aren't the [??] and [??] which I think

I am hearing

> > at the beginning of words such as "Nuke" or "Luke".
>
> Well, the latter alternate with [nuk], [luk], which is typical

North

> American pronunciation. If you want to get all radical on my ass,
> you should argue that English [ju] is still underlyingly [y]!
>

How about leisure and ledger?