Xref: utzoo sci.lang:4546 comp.cog-eng:1126 sci.psychology:1901
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!cadre!pitt!unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu!jmast
From: jmast@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu (John M Allen)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,comp.cog-eng,sci.psychology
Subject: Re: Regional accents (was: Spelling and Perceptual Mode)
Keywords: GB Shaw, orthography
Message-ID: <18088@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu>
Date: 17 May 89 23:09:54 GMT
References: <2763@puff.cs.wisc.edu> <60340@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> <11726@bcsaic.UUCP>
Reply-To: jmast@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu (John M Allen)
Distribution: na
Organization: Univ. of Pittsburgh, Comp & Info Sys
Lines: 32

In article <11726@bcsaic.UUCP> rwojcik@bcsaic.UUCP (Rick Wojcik) writes:
>                The two vowels /i/ and /y/ (yerih) are really perceived as
>the same sound by Russians.  They are allopones in complementary distribution.
>True spelling reform would have replaced them with a single symbol, just as
>the pre-revolutionary 'jat' was coalesced with the letter 'e'.

   There is an extremely good reason that the Russian spelling reform
did not combine the /i/ and /y/.  Historically, the two were separate
and the /i/, but not the /y/, caused the palatalization of the
preceding consonant.  There was then a reanalysis so that the
consonant caused the vowel to be front rather than the vowel causing
the consonant to be palatalized.  This reanalaysis means that the
number of consonant phonemes has approximately doubled.

   If the Soviets had merged /i/ and /y/ into one letter, then they
would have had to create about twenty new letters for the palatalized
consonants.  The major consequence of this is that they would have had
to have invested a lot of money into changing the type sets for
printing presses.  It is much easier to remove characters (just don't
use them) than to create new ones.

>Rick Wojcik


\		 |  |			John Allen
 \		\ ||			allen@mercutio.lcl.cmu.edu
/ \					formerly allen@mercurio.lcl.cmu.edu
					jmast@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu

   "The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of
respect and joy in each other's life.  Rarely do members of one family
grow up under the same roof."  -Richard Bach, _Illusions_