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From: rte@elmo.lz.att.com (Ralph T. Edwards)
Subject: Re: Power spectrum of phonemes?
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References: <AC7F815C966813DB1@yarn.demon.co.uk> <43kbsv$set@male.EBay.Sun.COM> <aldersonDF7sEy.3Ly@netcom.com> <rte-2209951437010001@mac-118.lz.att.com> <DFJtKr.AEI@eskimo.com>
Date: Wed, 27 Sep 1995 16:24:53 GMT
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In article <DFJtKr.AEI@eskimo.com>, rickw@eskimo.com (Richard Wojcik) wrote:

> In article <rte-2209951437010001@mac-118.lz.att.com>,
> Ralph T. Edwards <rte@elmo.lz.att.com> wrote:
> >In article <aldersonDF7sEy.3Ly@netcom.com>, alderson@netcom.com wrote:
> >
> >> *phonemes* are either (1) a mental construct or (2) an artefact of
> >> analytical grouping, depending on one's theoretical background and
bias(es).
> >> 
> >Wait, are you saying that some people question that phonemes are real? 
> >Some people dispute that reduction to a finite number of meaningfully
> >different atomic subunits of speech is part of the way humans generate and
> >decode speech? 
> >
> >Who makes such a bizarre claim? 
> 
> To call a phoneme a "mental construct" is not to dispute that it is real.
> If you are talking about generating and decoding speech, then you are
> talking about a psychological phoneme.  As Rich said, all of this depends
> on your theoretical viewpoint.

I wasn't quite sure what the original poster was saying, which is why I tried
to pin him down with a specific question.  To the extent I suspected either
of the statements suggested that phonemes weren't part of the encoding/
decoding chain, it would have been the one containing the word artefact, which
tends to mean something accidental or imaginary when used by a scientist other
than a paleontologist.

> 
> >Incidentally use of phonemes is directly comparable to digital waveforms in
> >information transmission between machines.  An infinite number of analog
> >waveform shapes are mapped to a sequence of symbols, each of which is one
> >of a finite number of siginificantly different symbols.
> 
> I doubt this. 

What precisely do you doubt?

> Psychological phonemes might not have any physical
> manifestation in the speech stream.

Huh?

>  Whether or not you insist on phonemes
> having a unique phonetic identity is, again, a matter of theoretical
> viewpoint.  

Huh again.  Let's try again.  A large number of distinct utterences, varying
from individual to individual, dialect to dialect, and by context map to a
finite muber of perceived phonemes (for each individual).  These phonemes
become so real to their users that many cannot conceive of other phonemic
distinctions. 
For example one British person stated recently in this group that he
could not hear the difference between Canadian out versus oat.  /@Ut/
versus /ot/.  This difference is obvious to any
Canadian/USer/Scot/Irishman...
It may not be obvious to an Englishman because the phoneme of oat has a wide
variation in England, including both above pronunciations.  So phonemes
obviously do not have a unique phonetic identity, but ?no physical
manifestation?  What can you possibly mean?  If they have no physical
manifestation text to speech or speech recognition based on a finite
number of phonological symbols must fail.  Do you propose that my mental
constructs are communicated to my interlocutor's by telepathy?:->

That each speaker has a finite number of speech segment symbols, and that
for each speaker there is a range of physical utterances and perceived sounds
that map to/from each of these symbols does not seem to me to be a
question of theoretical viewpoint.  If there are those who question this,
please give a reference to their work.  Now the exact count of phonemes
IS a matter of taste, especially whether a particular segement should be
viewed as an atomic unit, or a sequence of smaller units.  Is this
what you mean?  For example the diphthongs (or monophthong) of oat and out
may be viewed either as a single phoneme, or a string of two vowels.  The
single phoneme view is probably closer to how typical users store them,
but it's debatable.  By contrast the two vowel sequences of Spanish seem
to act more like independent symbols.  I don't think this sort of ambiguitiy
affects the underlying validity of the statement that there are a finite
number of symbols for each speaker.  (And an infinite number of manifestations
of each symbol, even for one speaker, with varying borders between speakers).

This infinite to finite mapping is the essence of digital communication,
between humans or machines.
> 
> -- 
> Rick Wojcik  rickw@eskimo.com     Seattle (for locals: Bellevue), WA
>              http://www.eskimo.com/~rickw/

-- 
R.T.Edwards rte@elmo.att.com 908 576-3031
