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b-hebrew - [b-hebrew] Peter Kirk's homonym percentage table

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  • From: "Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>
  • To: "B Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Peter Kirk's homonym percentage table
  • Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2007 01:39:45 +0000

On 1/14/07, K Randolph wrote:

It was when I digitized my notes from dictionary margins that I was
struck by how seldom the sin and shin appeared in homonyms, as seldom
as if they originally were one phoneme, not two as I had been taught. [...]
This study backed up that observation.

How does the study back up your observation?

I point out, again, that I do not accept that phonemes must occur at a
similar percentage relative to other phonemes. That is, that in order to
differentiate bat and hat as different words, /h/ and /b/ must be found in
the language at the same percentage as any other two phonems such
as /k/ and /p/. However, I am still curious as to how Peter's "study"
backs up your observation.

Yitzhak Sapir




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