Re: Graphemes defined

John Cowan wrote:

>
> Peter T. Daniels scripsit:
>
> > "For /S/ : /Z/, minimal pairs are even rarer, and only the following are
> > known in my speech: dilution : delusion, glacier : glazier, and Aleutian
> > : allusion.
>
> All three analyzable as /zj/.

Absolutely not. This is H. A. Gleason, this is ultra-orthodox
descriptive linguistics. Such "analysis" wouldn't even be invented until
half a decade later.

> > ... In English /Z/ is a rare phoneme, and particularly so in
> > monosyllables.
>
> I don't know what monosyllables have to do with it.

You would do well to read Gleason on phonemic analysis and minimal
pairs!

> > The author knows only three such words, loge, beige, and
> > rouge. The odds are against finding contrasts with only three words with
> > which to work."
>
> I will bet there are dialects in which all three of these show /dZ/.

We aren't describing a "dialect." We're describing General American, in
particular as instantiated by Henry Allan Gleason, Jr.

> > Now, what was the original problem?
>
> 1) Whether in some dialects all instances of /Z/ are analyzable as /zj/.
>
> 2) Whether there is any dialect in which /Z/ is *not* analyzable as /zj/
> apart from limited lexical exceptions without minimal pairs.

As you can see from the above remarks, such questions are entirely
dependent on the linguistic theory you espouse. They are not questions
of fact.

> --
> John Cowan jcowan@... http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
> Does anybody want any flotsam? / I've gotsam.
> Does anybody want any jetsam? / I can getsam.
> --Ogden Nash, No Doctors Today, Thank You

--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...