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As we saw in Chapter 3, the two major criteria for establishing phonemiccontrast are predictability of occurrence, and invariance of meaning.That is to say, if we are dealing with two allophones of the samephoneme, the two must occur in non-overlapping sets of environments.Furthermore, there cannot be any minimal pairs, where substituting oneof our focus sounds for the other in exactly the same context createsa difference in meaning. These two criteria establish conclusively thatEnglish [ɹ] and [l] belong to distinct phonemes: there are many minimalpairs, like rip and lip, rot and lot, marrow and mallow, so clearly the twophones occur in the same contexts; and substituting one for the otherdoes create a meaning difference. On the other hand, clear, alveolar[l] and dark, velar [l] occur in predictably different environments: inStandard Southern British English, the clear, more front one appearsword-initially or between vowels, as in lip, lot, mallow, and the dark, moreback one word-finally or before a consonant, as in pill, tall, halt. Sincethere are no minimal pairs, and substituting one variant for the other willnot make a meaning difference, [l] and [l] are necessarily allophones ofa single phoneme, /l/. |
