Phonemic distinctions and ESL students

Any definition of phonemes must reference the meanings of speech; the latter are of the essence of the concept.

Indeed, then how can you claim that /h/ and /N/ (as in "hung" = /h^N/) are not allophones?

Because they are two different phonemes.

Give us a minimal pair to show it.

You don't need a minimal pair. As long as one segment doesn't appear in place of the other without alteration of meaning, they are separate.

How then you do refute the claim (albeit counter-intuitive) that there is a phonological rule governing which of these allophones this postulated single phoneme is pronounced as?

It is exactly these phonological rules that you rely on to claim that [p] and [p(h)] (where the latter is aspirated) are allophones: the rule being that syllable initially /p/ becomes [p(h)].

The rule regarding this proposed [h]/[N] (let's call it /hN/) allophone might be something like this. Syllable initially pronounce it with the [h] allophone except between vowels. Postvocalically at the end of a syllable or between vowels pronounce it with the [N] allophone.

Armed with this, admittedly rather odd, phonological rule it not longer is a qestion of one segment appearing in the place of the other: phonemically they are the same segment. So "hung" would be /hN^hN/ which, according to our phonological rule, would be pronounced [h^N]. Switch the phonemes and you still get /hN^hN/.

Today I was truly shoked to see an announcement in the lobby of my building - it was probably written by the super. So it said that the laundry room is being renovated and stuff so we couldn;t use it for 3 days, and at the end it said "thank you for your patienTS" !!!!! I couldn't believe my eyes LOL

Shocked*

what are you going to do about it? sue them or something? some people can't spell, nuff said.

''How then you do refute the claim (albeit counter-intuitive) that there is a phonological rule governing which of these allophones this postulated single phoneme is pronounced as?''

''It is exactly these phonological rules that you rely on to claim that [p] and [p(h)] (where the latter is aspirated) are allophones: the rule being that syllable initially /p/ becomes [p(h)].''

''The rule regarding this proposed [h]/[N] (let's call it /hN/) allophone might be something like this. Syllable initially pronounce it with the [h] allophone except between vowels. Postvocalically at the end of a syllable or between vowels pronounce it with the [N] allophone.''

''Armed with this, admittedly rather odd, phonological rule it not longer is a qestion of one segment appearing in the place of the other: phonemically they are the same segment. So "hung" would be /hN^hN/ which, according to our phonological rule, would be pronounced [h^N]. Switch the phonemes and you still get /hN^hN/.''

Jim, this is interesting but, according to your rule [N] could also be an allophone of [j], [w] or even [W].

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Here's what I'd say the accurate diefinition of a phoneme is,

If a sound produces minimal pairs, makes words not rhyme with each other or is written with a different letter/diagraph/trigraph than the other sound then it's a phoneme.

So, [h] and [N] are phonemes because [h] is written with the letter ''h'' and [N] is written with the diagraph ''ng''. The ''d'' sound in ''day'' and the ''d'' sound in ''madder or allophones because they're both written with ''d''.

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There are some sounds that are allophones in most accents but phonemes in some accents.

An example,

The ''w'' in ''wet'' is a voiced [w] and the ''w'' in ''twice'' is a voiceless [w]. For most of us these sounds are allophones but for some Scots the distinction between these two ''w'' sounds is phonemic because they pronounce ''wet'', ''wine'', ''weed'', ''Wednesday'', ''well'', ''water'', ''witch'' etc. with a voiced [w] but pronounce ''ware'', ''hardware'', ''software'' and ''rareware'' with a voiceless [w]. These Scots similarly pronounce ''backward'' with a voiced [w] but ''awkward'' with a voiceless [w]. I once proposed in a spelling reform proposal I made to use ''w'' for the voiced [w] and to use ''ww'' for the voiceless [w] to show the phonemic distinction made by some people from Scotland of these two ''w'' sounds. What do you think about that idea?

I'm not trying to turn this thread into a spelling reform thread but I was just curious of what you think about that idea.


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So, if you said ''hung'' backwards you'd be saying [N^h] which would sound very different from [h^N] and really crazy.

Hroo, In some thread in another forum, a similar thing to what you're describing is being talked about,

Check out this thread-http://p081.ezboard.com/feuropa2frm40.showMessage?topicID=76.topic

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According to your defintion, Hroo, there is a phonemic difference between the vowels in these pairs of words:

vein/vain
thought/caught
sun/son
wood/would
brown/noun

just because they are spelt differently. Now, in some accents there may well be phonemic distinctions here (though I've seen no detailed and convincing evidence of it) but in most accents they are the same vowel. Relying on orthography to define the "phoneme" is just plain wrong.

''According to your defintion, Hroo, there is a phonemic difference between the vowels in these pairs of words:''

''vein/vain
thought/caught
sun/son
wood/would
brown/noun''

''just because they are spelt differently. Now, in some accents there may well be phonemic distinctions here (though I've seen no detailed and convincing evidence of it) but in most accents they are the same vowel. Relying on orthography to define the "phoneme" is just plain wrong.''

No, Jim, You did not read my full definition of a phoneme.

The sounds in those words can't possible be phonemic because they're not even phonetic. Of course, something can be phonetic but not phonemic but not the other way around.

Here's my definition of a phoneme again,

''If a sound produces minimal pairs, makes words not rhyme with each other or is written with a different letter/diagraph/trigraph than the other sound then it's a phoneme.''

The ''d'' sound in ''day'' and ''madder'' are two different sounds but not two different phonemes because their spelled the same way and they don't distinguish any words.

Typo, it should be,

''The sounds in those words can't possible be phonemically different because they're not even phonetically different.''