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From: goer@sophist.uucp (Richard Goerwitz)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,comp.cog-eng,sci.psychology
Subject: Re: Regional accents (was: Spelling and Perceptual Mode)
Keywords: GB Shaw, orthography
Message-ID: <3368@tank.uchicago.edu>
Date: 20 May 89 18:32:19 GMT
References: <2763@puff.cs.wisc.edu> <60340@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> <11726@bcsaic.UUCP> <5@minya.UUCP>
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Reply-To: goer@sophist.UUCP (Richard Goerwitz)
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In article <5@minya.UUCP> jc@minya.UUCP (John Chambers) writes:
>A reasonable English phonemic spelling system would include 
>this /r/ in the spelling, with a note that some dialects (British RP, New 
>England, etc.) have a deletion rule for non-pre-vocalic /r/.

The assumption here seems to be, e.g.:

     /bar/ [ba:]

because the /r/ is realized as [r] in forms like "barring."

As a language person, rather than a true theoretical linguist, I must
confess to some annoyance at the pervasiveness of this patently Pla-
tonic view of human language.  How do we know that "bar" and "barring"
represent divergent hypostases of a single underlying form (in the
Platonic sense)?  Why not have speakers simply lexicalize the relation-
ship?  Even if speakers relate the two in a more rule-oriented manner
than this, why not simply see the two in a more Aristotelian light -
as *related* rather than as manifesting some underlying, abstract form?
I see no logical connection between rules relating two forms and the
existence of an abstract *common* form.  I also do not see why both
models cannot coexist.

I would appreciate being enlightened on this point by those who are more
interested in general linguistic theory.  It is something that has bugged me
ever since my introduction to linguistics as an undergraduate in that
field at the University of Chicago.

                                       -Richard L. Goerwitz
                                       goer@sophist.uchicago.edu
                                       rutgers!oddjob!gide!sophist!goer