Re: How to Make Chicken Cacciatore (was: phonetics by guesswork)

On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 06:20:26 -0400, J. 'Mach' Wust <j_mach_wust@...>
wrote:
> I think that this might be the difference between allophones and
> archiphonemes (a term I didn't know before): archiphonemes are a notion
> that tries to reconciliate the different phonemic systems of the
> different dialects of a language, saving thus the unity of the language.
Specifically an 'archiphoneme' refers to places where the underlying
phoneme can't be pinned down due to neutralization. (This could be within
a dialect as well as cross-dialectally.)  For example an archiphoneme
covers certain nasals before certain consonants in English: some might say
it is difficult to prove whether the [n] in <bend> is actually an /n/
underlyingly[1]; less radically, it is difficult to determine what phoneme
the <m> (usually a labiodental nasal) in <symphony> stands for--is it /n/
(Greek syn+phonia, cf. Spanish sinfonia) or /m/ (as per the spelling,
which may be as influenced by the following <p> than anyone's perception
of the sound) ?

For a better explanation see
<http://everything2.com/index.pl?node=archiphoneme>.

	*Muke!
[1] I think.  I get the impression that's been argued, but it may not be
an idea anyone holds.
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