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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> <rte-2709951124530001@mac-118.lz.att.com> <DFs1y1.C59@eskimo.com> <rte-0210951046590001@mac-118.lz.att.com> <DG03p4.EJA@eskimo.com>
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 16:43:50 GMT
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In article <DG03p4.EJA@eskimo.com>, rickw@eskimo.com (Richard Wojcik) wrote:

> Phonemes are phonetic units (or classes of units) that function in a
> language to distinguish morphemes or words.  Early phonemic theory (roughly
> 1880-1930) assumed that phonemes could be completely neutralized in speech
> from a phonetic point of view.  For example, one could take the "flapped
> /t/" in `writing' and the "flapped /d/" in `riding' as a phonemic overlap
> or neutralization.  This was what Bloomfield did.  After the turn of the
> century, linguists began to challenge the notion of phonemic
> neutralization, and phonemes actually came to be defined as phonetically
> unambiguous at one point.  Many linguists today still use the term
> "phoneme" to describe a phonetically unambiguous sound unit or category.
> -- 
> Rick Wojcik  rickw@eskimo.com     Seattle (for locals: Bellevue), WA
>              http://www.eskimo.com/~rickw/

If I've understood you correctly, the debate is about whether the word
phoneme should be used to describe the mental symbols used to store the
deeper morphemes
/rait/ for write, (or /to:d/ for the German word for death) or a later
stage of linguistic production after rules for context have been fully
applied.
/rait/ vs. /rai<flap>IN/ or /to:t/ vs. /to:d@s/.
It does seem we should have separate words for the two concepts, both seem real.
I always assumed it meant the latter, but I see the need for some word for
the former.

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