Re: THEORY: phonemics (was: RE: [CONLANG] Optimum

Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...> wrote:

>"Mike S." wrote:
>> To use my own idiolect as an example, assume for a moment that
>> although I never say [?] for intervocalic /t/, I also never fail
>> to hear [?] for intervocalic /t/ when pronounced that way by
>> others.  For my own idiolect, would you say that [?] is part of
>> the intervocalic phoneme /t/ for my idiolect (even though I never
>> say it), or no it isn't (even though I always hear it)?
>
>But, is that really a part of the phoneme /t/?
That's the $64,000 question :-)


>I'd consider that simply
>part of your knowledge of other accents.  The first time I heard that
>usage, I didn't know what they were saying, it was only later that I
>learned that was the way they pronounced /t/ in some dialects.  Since I
>have no [?] in my dialect (except sometimes before word-initial vowels),
>there was no chance of confusing their [?] with anything in my dialect,
>thus, it was an easy thing to learn.  But, I certainly don't preserve it
>as being /t/.
That sounds reasonable.  I'll wait to see if there are other opinions
before I make up my mind though.


Regards