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From: alderson@netcom.com (Richard M. Alderson III)
Subject: Re: Infinite phonemes (Re: schwa)
In-Reply-To: timd@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM's message of 17 Aug 1995 15:13:02 -0500
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Date: Fri, 18 Aug 1995 17:15:17 GMT
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In article <4107se$96s@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM> timd@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM
(Orpheus) writes:

>To me, it seems like there is no real fixed set of phonemes, but rather a
>whole range...like colors, an "unstressed schwa" is to a "stressed schwa" as
>is a hue of violet is to a hue of lavendar...particular languages pick
>different points on the spectrum to place emphasis but the points waver, the
>accuracy varies, etc.

You seem to be confusing "phonemes"--which in the phonological theory in which
I work are psychological constructs--with "phones"--that is, produced speech
sounds.

Experimental phonetics has shown that speech sounds within any given language
cluster.  These clusters center around idealizations which we can consider to
be phonemes (if we do not accept a psychological definition thereof).

This is not to say that your observation of infinite variability is incorrect,
but rather your labeling of same.
-- 
Rich Alderson   You know the sort of thing that you can find in any dictionary
                of a strange language, and which so excites the amateur philo-
                logists, itching to derive one tongue from another that they
                know better: a word that is nearly the same in form and meaning
                as the corresponding word in English, or Latin, or Hebrew, or
                what not.
                                                --J. R. R. Tolkien,
alderson@netcom.com                               _The Notion Club Papers_
