Latin, the Enlightenment, and science
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From: Nathan Sanders on 29 Dec 2009 17:11 In article <hhdsd5$haq$1(a)news.eternal-september.org>, António Marques <antonioprm(a)sapo.pt> wrote: > Nathan Sanders wrote (29-12-2009 20:49): > > > There are plenty of near-minimal pairs for /T/ and /D/ (some depending > > on dialect): earthy/worthy, author/bother, thin/then (a true minimal > > pair for US Southerners), thin/this, thank/than, etc. > > Earthy/worthy being a very good one since the words belong to the same > specific class (not only both are referents, both are adjectives). Right, it avoids the distributional "rules" based on lexical category. Note that <author> and <bother> can each be a noun and a verb, so that pair avoids the lexical category problem, unless it's based solely on *primary* lexical category. In that case, replace <bother> with <father> (only for those speakers who use the same vowels in these words, of course). Nathan
From: Robert Bannister on 29 Dec 2009 17:48 Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote: > On 2009-12-29 04:31:23 +0100, Harlan Messinger > <hmessinger.removethis(a)comcast.net> said: > >> Brian M. Scott wrote: >>> On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 18:05:09 -0800 (PST), DKleinecke >>> <dkleinecke(a)gmail.com> wrote in >>> <news:e1f26d37-f0bf-4a6d-9aa3-9f3ee47a6f08(a)o28g2000yqh.googlegroups.com> >>> in >>> sci.math,sci.physics,sci.lang,alt.usage.english,alt.philosophy: >>> >>>> On Dec 27, 10:53 pm, "benli...(a)ihug.co.nz" <benli...(a)ihug.co.nz> >>>> wrote: >>> >>> [...] >>> >>>>> ... I am more than ever at a loss to understand how any >>>>> linguist can maintain with a straight face that dh/th >>>>> are in "complementary distribution". >>> >>>> It offends them that there are no minial pairs. >>> >>> Tthere are, and they know it: <thigh> ~ <thy>, and for many >>> people <either> ~ <ether>. They dispose of these on other >>> grounds. >> >> Sooth-soothe, teeth-teethe. Thayer-there (in Texas)? > > Is it not odd, however, that although both sounds are common in the > language, not even a single one of these minimal pairs is beyond > argument: "thy" and "sooth" are rare to the point of non-existence in > modern English (other than in religious use, in the case of "thy"); > "either" and "ether" are not a minimal pair for many (most?) native > speakers; although "teething" is certainly a common word in everyday use > I'm not sure that "teethe" is. You can say, for example, "children start > to teethe at about one-year old" (or whatever age it is: my youngest > child is 26, so It was a while ago), but you'd be much more likely to > hear "children start teething at about one-year old". I don't for a > moment doubt that the distinction is phonemic, but it would be nice to > have just one minimal pair of everyday words that wasn't open to any > sort of objection. Slightly off this particular topic: I've noticed an increasing use of "bath" as a verb. Obviously, this is not a minimal pair with "bathe" since the vowels are quite different, but it still indicates that the two sounds do function as at least part of our method of distinguishing different words. -- Rob Bannister
From: Ruud Harmsen on 29 Dec 2009 17:51 Tue, 29 Dec 2009 21:24:54 +0000: Ant�nio Marques <antonioprm(a)sapo.pt>: in sci.lang: >Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote (29-12-2009 19:45): > >> If anyone doubted whether the difference between f and v was phonemic >> one could think of endless examples to show that it was, including some >> very common words like "life" and "live" (adjective). So there does seem >> to be something special about the two th sounds. Is there any mechanism >> that could explain why minimal pairs are so rare? > >Is this so different from the case with german ch? (It is different in a >quantitative sense, inasmuch as some speakers undoubtedly do have one ch >phoneme while others may have two; but it's similar inasmuch as it's a >borderline case.) Remember, borderline cases a.k.a. marginal phonemes DO NOT exist, per Peter T Daniels. Phonemes are strictly "same or different", even in historical context. So one day, at 5:31:14.037 AM on the 14th of March of the year 1437, the former allophones [D] and [T] suddenly turned into separate phonemes /D/ and /T/ in the English language. Science doesn't allow any other scenario, so it cannot have happened but so. -- Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com
From: Robert Bannister on 29 Dec 2009 17:58 Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote: > On 2009-12-29 19:28:36 +0100, Ruud Harmsen <rh(a)rudhar.eu> said: > >> [ ... ] > >> >> loath loathe > > OK > >> wreath wreathe > > "wreathed" is OK, but how often does the uninflected form occur: almost > never. I suspect you have forgotten the noun which is common enough. I wonder whether there is agreement about whether the plural "wreaths" is unvoiced or voiced. > >> sheath sheathe > > Likewise. I don't think I've ever heard "wreathed" in uninflected form. I presume you meant "sheathe" - is that even a word? I would have expected "sheath" (unvoiced) with past forms "sheathed" (voiced or unvoiced according to taste). > >> >> mouth (noun) mouth (verb) > > OK > >> thou (short for 1000) thou (pronoun) > > The first is engineers' slang; the latter is archaic (other than in church) > >> teeth teethe > > As I mentioned earlier (in the bit you chopped), I think "teething" is > very rare in uninflected form. > > So we're left with "loth" (as I spell it, but I realize not everyone > does) and "loathe", together with "mouth" and "mouth". > > If anyone doubted whether the difference between f and v was phonemic > one could think of endless examples to show that it was, including some > very common words like "life" and "live" (adjective). You could add s and z to that. > So there does seem > to be something special about the two th sounds. Is there any mechanism > that could explain why minimal pairs are so rare? -- Rob Bannister
From: Robert Bannister on 29 Dec 2009 18:10
Peter Moylan wrote: > On 29/12/09 13:42, Brian M. Scott wrote: >> On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 18:05:09 -0800 (PST), DKleinecke >> <dkleinecke(a)gmail.com> wrote in >> <news:e1f26d37-f0bf-4a6d-9aa3-9f3ee47a6f08(a)o28g2000yqh.googlegroups.com> >> in >> sci.math,sci.physics,sci.lang,alt.usage.english,alt.philosophy: >> >>> On Dec 27, 10:53 pm, "benli...(a)ihug.co.nz" <benli...(a)ihug.co.nz> >>> wrote: >> [...] >> >>>> ... I am more than ever at a loss to understand how any >>>> linguist can maintain with a straight face that dh/th >>>> are in "complementary distribution". >>> It offends them that there are no minial pairs. >> Tthere are, and they know it: <thigh> ~ <thy>, and for many >> people <either> ~ <ether>. They dispose of these on other >> grounds. > > You're talking modern English now. Those examples wouldn't have worked > in the days when eth and thorn were part of a writer's alphabet. > I wonder about that, seeing spelling was not fixed back then. It's easy to see how one letter will predominate when it occurs at the beginning of a word, but when it comes in the middle, especially when it occurs between two vowels, we know that many of us freely switch between f/v, s/z, even t/d (call it a flapped t, if you like) - that is why there are two form "hoofs" and "hooves", but for some weird reason "rooves" is frowned upon. -- Rob Bannister |