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From: rickw@eskimo.com (Richard Wojcik)
Subject: Re: Acquisition of phonemes thfough foreign influences
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References: <43q7i7$93b@ixnews2.ix.netcom.com> <rte-2509951127070001@mac-118.lz.att.com> <446odb$28j@netsrv2.spss.com> <rte-2609950957510001@mac-118.lz.att.com>
Date: Fri, 29 Sep 1995 03:56:36 GMT
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In article <rte-2609950957510001@mac-118.lz.att.com>,
Ralph T. Edwards <rte@elmo.lz.att.com> wrote:
>In article <446odb$28j@netsrv2.spss.com>, markrose@spss.com (Mark
>Rosenfelder) wrote:
>
>> In article <rte-2509951127070001@mac-118.lz.att.com>,
>> Ralph T. Edwards <rte@elmo.lz.att.com> wrote:
>> >In article <43skn7$q3l@netsrv2.spss.com>, markrose@spss.com (Mark
>> >Rosenfelder) wrote:
>> >> zh was acquired from French; so was v (as a phoneme-- the sound existed
>> >> between vowels, but not at the beginning of words).

Actually, one could argue that [v] was a mere allophone of /f/ between
vowels historically.  I doubt that French loan words instigated the change.
Rather, it was the appearence of voiced fricative phonemes that allowed
French words with such fricatives to be borrowed as is into English.  What
causes such global changes (as the appearance of voiced fricatives) to
occur?  Usually, it is the loss of the conditioning factors that trigger
the allophony.  In the case of voiced fricatives, I suspect that changes in
prosody led to syncopated vowels.  This, in turn, would have been perceived
by youngsters learning English as pure voiced fricatives, since the
intervocalic trigger would have been less apparent to infants.  Big changes
took place in the Middle English period, and we shouldn't blame the French
for being around when their phonemes were compatible with evolving English
phonology.  (Not that I hold the French entirely blameless of other
linguistic atrocities.  ;-)

>> >Time out.  French does not have /Z/ in any of the words cited, so English
>> >couldn't have acquired /Z/ from French in these words.  As far as I know,
>> >French did not have /Z/ at the time most of these words were borrowed,
>> >but had /dZ/ where modern French has /Z/.  Only much more recent borrowings
>> >from French have /Z/.  Borrowings from 11-13th century have /dZ/ for modern
>> >French /Z/.  The most likely source of /Z/ is /z/ +/j/ -> /Z/.
>> 
>> 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/.
>
>Why reinterpreted?  Once the shift has occurred, it's already a phoneme.
>disclosure-discloser.  On this native base new borrwings may occur.
>I'm not a believer in the theory that we carry around some sort of underlying
>structure that recapitulates the phonological history of the language.
>That is I think measure is stored as /mEZR/ not /mEzjR/ with sound shift
>applied.

I don't think /mEzjR/ is inconcievable, it is just that there is no
morphological or phonological reason to posit such an analysis.  Such
coalescences are "explanatory" in the sense that they make the articulation
of the [sj] cluster easier by removing the necessity for a transition.
Hence, "as you like it" is often pronounce [aeZulaykIt].

-- 
Rick Wojcik  rickw@eskimo.com     Seattle (for locals: Bellevue), WA
             http://www.eskimo.com/~rickw/
