From: Peter Kirk (peterkirk@qaya.org)
Date: Tue Feb 03 2004 - 13:53:40 EST
On 03/02/2004 08:43, jcowan@reutershealth.com wrote:
> ...
>
>No, you miss the point altogether. The point is that [h] is only found
>in English at the beginning of a syllable (an example of it appearing in
>the middle of a word is "ahead"), whereas [ng] is only found at the end of
>a syllable. Therefore, there can be no minimal pairs contrasting them,
>and therefore no formal reason not to assign them to the same phoneme,
>dubbed "heng". Of course, this theory is absurd: a triumph of Reason
>in the service of pure madness....
>
>
>
John, your phonology isn't actually even reasonable. [eng] occurs
intervocally in words like hanger, singing. Whether this is syllable
initial depends on your analysis. There are minimal pairs at the
syllable level between the British pronounciation of Birmingham (silent
h, stress on first syllable only) and many similar -ingham names, and
(rarer) place names like Odiham (Hampshire) - although I suspect the h
tends to be silent in the latter.
-- Peter Kirk peter@qaya.org (personal) peterkirk@qaya.org (work) http://www.qaya.org/
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