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From: rharmsen@knoware.nl (Ruud Harmsen)
Subject: Re: how many phonemes?
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Date: Thu, 9 Mar 1995 09:14:31 GMT
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In article <3jb485$ift@amhux3.amherst.edu> damastro@unix.amherst.edu (David A. Mastroianni) writes:
>From: damastro@unix.amherst.edu (David A. Mastroianni)
>Subject: Re: how many phonemes?
>Date: 4 Mar 1995 20:30:45 -0500

>I (damastro@news.amherst.edu) wrote:
>: About how many phonemes does any individual language recognize?  Is there
>: a wide variation between languages?

>Obviously, there's wide variation between the actual phonemes that humans
>recognize, but do different languages recognize about the same number?
>        Actually, does the international phonetic alphabet recognize all of
>different phonemes that different languages have?
The way you put the question makes the answer difficult. Phonetics refers to 
speech sounds, as they can be distinguished. Any number of slightly differing 
sounds may be distinguished, so by nature any attempt to describe this in 
symbols involves an arbitrary choice, by grouping sounds into what occurs in 
many or some languages.
Phonemes are what in a _given_ language distinguishes words. Within a single 
phoneme, there can be several sounds, due to position, region, personal style, 
age, sex, etc. etc.
To describe phonemes, usually phonetic symbols are chosen, that respresent 
the most common sound that corresponds to it. But this can never be accurate 
by just giving the symbols. 
It is possible, though difficult and often debatable, to determine what the 
phonemes of a language are, and so how many of them there are. One method 
is to put minimally differing pairs side-by-side. 
But the number of phonetic sounds is unlimited, even in a single language.

