Abstract
Phonologists often look to “external” data to determine which analysis of some set of data is psychologically real for the users of the language. In this vein, Chao (1931, 1934) argued that secret language data support the analysis of Beijing palatals as allophones of the velars. However, several of the secret language rules described by Chao are not allophonic rules of Beijing phonology, and some do not even belong to the phonology at all. In particular, the process which relates palatals to velars is argued not to be allophonic and to be probably quite independent of the phonology (as suggested by data from a second secret language). Depending on how we analyze the latter, the palatals turn out to be phonemically distinct from velars, or else their phonemic status remains indeterminate. Thus, “external” data cannot always be used to settle the cases of indeterminacy (or, non-uniqueness).
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I would like to thank several anonymous reviewers for their comments as well as San Duanmu for his comments and assistance with translating some passages from Chao (1931).
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Ramer, A.M. Lárbitraire de chine. J East Asian Linguis 4, 59–69 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01720746
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01720746