Re: THEORY: Phonology: Natlangs: Attested Minimal Pairs?

On 8/15/05, Tom Chappell <tomhchappell@...> wrote:
> 
> Hello, everybody in the group and on the list.
> I have a question about phonology.
>  Is every pair of distinguished sounds in IPA actually attested as a 
> minimal pair distinguishing two different lexemes in some natlang?
> 
> How about every pair of distinguished sounds in X-SAMPA or C-XSAMPA?
>  How about every pair of distinguished sounds in Alexander Melville 
> Bell's Visible Speech? 
> 
Oh, definitely not. Not even close, really. Let me try to think of an 
example... well, for example, I don't think any distinguish between bilabial 
and labiodental fricatives. Or, for that matter, between bilabial and 
labiodental nasals. For vowels, no language distinguishes between round and 
unrounded central vowels at any particular height. (I don't know all the 
thousands of languages of the world, so I can't say these with certainty, 
but these are some "universals" that I've heard thrown around.)

Of course, the IPA isn't really motivated by the distinctiveness critereon. 
If it were, it would probably never get finished, 'cuz there'd be too much 
argument over which sounds to include and which to exclude. For example, are 
the "back" unrounded vowels of, say, Turkish, Korean, and Vietnamese really 
underlyingly central? There have been arguments that they are so, and if it 
all ends up being true, we're left with no distinction between back high 
round and back high unround.

There is a difference, though; you can make it and you can hear it. That's 
plenty of grounds for inclusion in the IPA etc. The IPA wouldn't do its job 
if it didn't distinguish back high round from back high unround. Our 
transcriptions of Japanese and English wouldn't be correct, 'cuz they would 
make a claim that their respective back high vowels were the same sound, 
which they're not. When someone read my transcription of little tribal 
language X, they wouldn't know how to pronounce X's central high vowel.

So, the short answer is no, and the long answer... well, that's no, too. It 
would make sense for a "universal writing system" -- might be a fun project 
-- but not for a tool for linguists, who need to be clear that Japanese back 
high vowels are unrounded even if the Japanese (or anyone else) can't 
distinguish it from a rounded one or a hole in the ground.

-- 
Patrick Littell
PHIL205: MWF 2:00-3:00, M 6:00-9:00
Voice Mail: ext 744
Spring 05 Office Hours: M 3:00-6:00

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