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From: rickw@eskimo.com (Richard Wojcik)
Subject: Re: The story of /Z/ - was acquisition of phonemes from ...
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References: <rte-0510951400230001@mac-118.lz.att.com>
Date: Sat, 7 Oct 1995 15:05:15 GMT
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In article <rte-0510951400230001@mac-118.lz.att.com>,
Ralph T. Edwards <rte@elmo.lz.att.com> wrote:
>...
>So the sequence is:
>
>1. 11-14th century Engish acquires /z/ and /v/ from French where previously
>[s] and [z] were allophones of /s/ and [f] and [v] were allophones of /f/.

If the question was whether English acquired such phonemic contrasts from
French, then this statement begs it.  Did your sources consider the
possibility that the phonemic contrasts developed in the population before
the borrowings took place?  Did they say why they rejected that possibility?

>2. 14th-17th century through loss of endings and /zj/->/Z/ shift, English
>acquires contrasting T/D and S/Z. (/S/ was previously acquired from /sk/)

What is the evidence that T/D and S/Z were not phonemic during the Middle
English period?  Did your sources cite manuscripts in which spellings for
the two sounds were confused?  (BTW, although you called these items
"data", they are really just conclusions.  The interesting issue is how the
conclusions were arrived at.)

>3. 18th and later English borrows /Z/ in postions other than intervocalically.
>
>The defense rests.

Uh, oh.  You don't happen to be litigating this in California, do you?  ;-)
-- 
Rick Wojcik  rickw@eskimo.com     Seattle (for locals: Bellevue), WA
             http://www.eskimo.com/~rickw/
