5 Pre-phonemic vs phonemic interpretations of a Phoenician syllable
A Phoenician sign represents in effect several CV syllables, including the weakened CV. It should be noted here that a Phoenician CV syllable can be spoken with varying degrees of accentuation of V in different polysyllabic words. Phonetically V could take on any value from a fully expressed V to a completely suppressed V, with varying degrees of accentuation of V in between. However, a phonemic interpretation of the various sound values of V (including a very weak V) in a Phoenician CV syllable demands that one should decide whether the said syllable is a CV syllable or simply a C phoneme. A pre-phonemic interpretation, as distinct from a phonemic one, would probably regard a Phoenician CV syllable as a single integral sound unit, leaving the native speakers to take care of the various values of V in daily conversation.
To illustrate the above point, we now use the English word medicine as an example. This word can be pronounced as /medisin/ or as /medsin/. In the pronunciation of /medisin/, the second syllable can be realized as [dɪ] or [də]. When [ɪ] or [ə] gets shorter and lighter, it may become inaudible, and the pronunciation of the word will be transcribed as /medsin/. A pre-phonemic approach would treat [dɪ], [də] and [d] as different realizations of the same sound, whereas a phonemic approach will regard [dɪ] and [də] as different realizations of the syllable /di/, but will regard [d] as the realization of the consonant /d/. Accordingly, the syllable /di/ and the consonant /d/ will be regarded as two different sounds.
A phonemic writing system has to decide on a spelling that reflects either the pronunciation /medisin/ or /medsin/. Since the spelling of a word has to take into consideration its inner morphological structure as well as its surface phonological structure, the spelling medicine has prevailed as it takes care of both structures. medi- is the root for a number of related words such as medic, medical, medicinal, and medication. If the word medicine were spelled as *medcine so as to reflect the pronunciation /medsin/, the root medi- would not be as clearly identifiable. In a segmental writing system, sometimes one has to decide whether the spelling of a word should give a bias to its underlying morphological structure or to its surface phonological one. However, in a syllabic writing system like Phoenician, one does not have to deal with this problem. The sign representing the syllable /di/ can be left intact even when the actual pronunciation has weakened to [dɪ], [də], or [d].
26 December 2016
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