Newsgroups: sci.lang
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!udel!news.sprintlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!nntp.crl.com!pacbell.com!gw2.att.com!nntpa!mac-118.lz.att.com!user
From: rte@elmo.lz.att.com (Ralph T. Edwards)
Subject: Re: Acquisition of phonemes thfough foreign influences
Message-ID: <rte-2609951012480001@mac-118.lz.att.com>
Sender: news@nntpa.cb.att.com (Netnews Administration)
Nntp-Posting-Host: mac-118.lz.att.com
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs
References: <446odb$28j@netsrv2.spss.com> <448q75$1jg@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 1995 15:12:48 GMT
Lines: 25

In article <448q75$1jg@agate.berkeley.edu>, coby@euler.Berkeley.EDU (Coby
(Jacob) Lubliner) wrote:

> In article <446odb$28j@netsrv2.spss.com>,
> Mark Rosenfelder <markrose@spss.com> wrote:
> 
> >I'll grant you that the most likely source of [Z] is [zj]; but why would
> >the [Z] become phonemic?  Very likely, I would think, due to the relatively
> >recent importation of French words such as _mirage_; since [Z] can now
> >contrast with [dZ] word-finally (cf. _raj_), the [Z] in words like 'measure'
> >got reinterpreted as phonemic /Z/.
> 
> It seems very unlikely to me.  The most obvious explanation
> seems to be the correspondence with the unvoiced analogue,
> i.e. [sj] -> [S], as in "pressure", "issue", etc.
> 

This is not an explanation at all, just an observation.  It's quite
obvious that sj->S and zj->Z are two manifestations of the same phenomenon,
alveolar fricative plus /j/ goes to palatal fricative (or watever the
right terms are) with voicing irrelevant.  Why should one "explain" the
other?

-- 
R.T.Edwards rte@elmo.att.com 908 576-3031
