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Re: tlhn'ks't, ngghlyam'ft, and other scary words

From:BP Jonsson <bpj@...>
Date:Wednesday, February 5, 2003, 20:02
At 06:56 5.2.2003 -0600, Danny Wier wrote:
>Danish-Norwegian-Swedish: i I e E ae y Y o/ oe (OE) @ a u U o O Q A (17 or 18)
Lest this misconception be perpetuated: Swedish and Norwegian both have 9 vowels: i y o e u å ä/æ ö/ø a which may be long or short depending on context, i.e. length is determined by phonemic and morphological context, but is hardly Deep distinctive. Danish has ten vowel phonemes plus a length prosody which is distinctive: i y u e ø o æ (ö) å a Note that Danish /ö/ is not orthographically distinguished from /ø/. Danish length is distinctive, but long and short pairs don't differ phonetially from each other, so an analysis with an underlying prosodeme [length] seems preferable. Historically they both derive from the common scandinavian system which was a lot like the Danish: i y u e ø o æ a å Also with distinctive length, so yes 20 Vs if you are of that school... / B.Philip Jonsson B^)> -- mailto:melrochX@melroch.net (delete X!) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ No man forgets his original trade: the rights of nations and of kings sink into questions of grammar, if grammarians discuss them. -Dr. Samuel Johnson (1707 - 1784)