R: Re: Sirmave part I: phonology

Marcus wrote:

> >Vowels:
> >
> >There are 15 vowel sounds (6 simple vowels + 5 allophones and 5 nasal
> >vowels); native linguists still don't agree whether nasal vowels are
> >independent phonemes or allophones of normal vowels appearing before the
> >phoneme [n] + another consonant. (Could *you* help me to grasp this
> >problem?)
> >
> >               simple                nasal
> >high    i            u           e~       u~
> >mid      e Y    o               E~    o~
> >low           a                         a~
>
> Any reason Y is not nasalized?
As for now, I thought that the phoneme [Y] could have arisen from [o] when
in open sillables... but I'm not sure; there are some other candidates: the
old diphthongs eu and oi, i.e., but they could appear in closed syllables as
well, and to get a stable system, then, I'd have to include [Y~] in the
inventory; if I had an [Y~], then it'd be quite obvious that they are
allophones.

> This could be part of the key for understanding whether nasalization is
> phonemic or allophonic. If nasalization comes from VnC, then we need a
> reason why Y cannot occur in this context. If nasalization is phonemic,
> then the gap in the inventory is less remarkable. If I had to select one
> vowel in the system that could not be nasalized, it would have been Y.
>
> >Stress
> >
> >Stress generally falls on the penultimate syllable. A syncope phenomenon
> >levelled a lot the irregularities present in the older system ('CV1CV2CV3
> >often became 'CV1CCV3).
>
> Does that mean the stressed syllable was syncopated? That would be
unusual.

The *unstressed* syllable in is syncoped. I wrote:

('CV1CV2CV3 often became 'CV1CCV3)

where I marked the stress with a ' on CV1.

Luca

> Marcus
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> ===============================
> Marcus Smith
> AIM:  Anaakoot
> "When you lose a language, it's like
> dropping a bomb on a museum."
>    -- Kenneth Hale
> ===============================
>