Quote

That's a handy simplification, but it's rarely actually true if you get down and dirty in the phonetics. There's a reason, for example, that English doesn't have a word "sbin".

OK, we're getting of track here -- simplification or not, the fact is phoneticians agree that the prototype of the phoneme /p/ is not voiced. It does not have the distinctive feature for voice.

Anyway, while we're on the topic for distinctive features, what are the "distinctive features" for adjectives in e.g. English that make them distinct from nouns in the same language?

It's not off track, though. That's the very important thing. You keep talking about "the prototype of the phoneme /p/", but no such thing exists without a great big pile of theory. Seriously. Phoneticians do not agree that the phoneme /p/ is not voiced, because that's not how phonemes work. Phonemes -- fundamentally -- do not possess *any* extent of cross-linguistic identity. There is no prototype from which individual languages are deviations. The only thing that exists is contrast, and we ascribe these contrasts with conventional labels to make it easier to talk to each other. The fact that we call all these different things /p/ is a descriptive convenience.

The same is true for functional categories like adjective and noun. What makes an adjective an adjective is that it's not a noun. What makes a noun a noun is that it's not an adjective. If you want to postulate (as many do) a more universal schema, you're doing so in terms of a particular theoretical frame.

The only thing that exists is contrast, and we ascribe these contrasts with conventional labels to make it easier to talk to each other. The fact that we call all these different things /p/ is a descriptive convenience.

I was under the impression that all phonemes could be described with reference to distinctive features, depending on what language they were a part of.

Anyway...

There is no universal test, in the same way that the "bat vs pat" test is valid only within English.

I disagree. Minimal pairs are a kind of test... no?

 
Yes!
What are some good minimal pairs to start checking with?

ok, let's stick with English nouns vs adjectives. On what basis would you claim they are separate categories? Adjectives, in Eng, after all, are rather noun-like.

Quote

The only thing that exists is contrast, and we ascribe these contrasts with conventional labels to make it easier to talk to each other. The fact that we call all these different things /p/ is a descriptive convenience.

I was under the impression that all phonemes could be described with reference to distinctive features, depending on what language they were a part of.

Anyway...

Everything I'm saying about phonemes applies to features as well. If your theoretical model presumes the existence of features, then that's actually your basis of contrast. Phonemes then become composites and nothing more.

Quote

There is no universal test, in the same way that the "bat vs pat" test is valid only within English.

I disagree. Minimal pairs are a kind of test... no?

Minimal pairs are a demonstration of contrast. That's it. They do not, at face value, tell you anything about the nature of the contrast. There is nothing inherent to the universe that mandates certain kinds of contrasts to exist in language. These contrasts are language specific, and it is methodologically dangerous to go in assuming we should be able to find minimal pairs of a particular type in a given language.

In other words, you just need to look for distributional criteria: syntactic and morphological contexts in which one class of word can appear but another can't. That's it. We can't tell you ahead of time what those contexts will be. Daniel has illustrated some of those contexts for English, but as he says there is no reason those same distributional criteria will work in the languages you are working on.

Typologically speaking, most languages make a distinction in basic predication. If you really can say "This big is dog" as easily as "This dog is big", it is entirely possible that the language does not distribute nouns and adjectives contrastively. More tests are needed, but that's a good start.

hard to say because the copula is different... but sorta possible to have both orders

It's not a question of whether it can be said/translated but whether it is the same construction for both. If not, that's clear evidence that they behave differently.



Also:
The big dog
*The dog big

Thanks everyone!