[From: Bruce Nevin (Mon 930621 16:00:33 EDT)]
( Rick Marken (930621.1230) ) --
So you'll hear "she" if the appropriate
acoustic signal is produced -- whether it is the controlled result
of someone's speech articulators or the "caused" result of steam
passing out of a radiator valve.
And there's a rabbit in that cloud up there.
You'll hear phonemes if you're listening for speech. Look at some of the
experimental work with synthesized speech. People who are primed to
expect speech hear speech; those who are not hear only noises. Look at
speakers of languages other than English listening to the same noises in
the exploratorium. They don't hear the same phonemes. Why not? One
person's language has no contrast between s and sh; another person's
language has a 3-way contrast between s, sh, and S (more usually written
with a dot under the s). One language has a contrast between i and y
(like French "tu") and it sounds more like sy! to them than shi! (your
"she!"). You say the phonemes are in the sounds of air rushing through
tubes and trees--how can they be different phonemes for different people?
Oh, so they're different phonemes just because each individual is an
autonomous control system controlling perceptions independently of the
others? Then how come all the native speakers of English hear the same
phonemes from the tubes in the exploratorium? (BTW, it doesn't matter
whether the sounds recognized as phonemes are coming from a control
system, a tape recording, or a mechanism of tubes and air lines with no
control system involved, the hearer reconstructs the phonemes she would
have intended had she produced those sounds.
The phonemes are not in the noises. They're in your head.
you want language to be a special kind of
phenomenon; a perception that ONLY exists because it is
controlled.
It's not a matter of what I want or you want. That appears to be the
way it is, by golly. But I'm grateful to you for getting the point, even
though you're resisting it as a disturbance to something. Could you
specify what?
Bruce
bn@bbn.com