Re: natlang stuff: vowelless words

Danny Wier <dawier@...> wrote:
> Since I've been studying this, I'll mention something that might
> interest you, and one or more of you might have this in a conlang...
>=20
> Russian (and other Slavic languages) have a few words made up of one
> consonant and no vowel.  These are all prepositions:
>=20
> _v_ "in; at; to"
> _k_ "to; toward" (with dative)
> _s_ "with, accompanied by" (with instrumental); "from" (with genitive)
>=20
> And I think there's a _z^_ /Z/ used in literary registers; I believe
> it's an emphatic particle.  It also appears as _z^e_.
>=20
> Again, these are considered independent words, but functionally
> they're more like prefixes, since they always occur before nouns,
> pronouns, and adjectives.  Rules of assimilation cause _v_ to be
> devoiced before words beginning with voiceless consonants, and _k_
> and _s_ to be voiced before voiced stops.  Also, longer forms of
> these words exist with vowel; they are used before words with complex
> initial consonant clusters: _v_ < _vo_; _k_ < _ko_; _s_ < _so_.
>=20
> Any other natlang examples of this, and also conlangs?
>=20
Well, the articles in Romance languages (Italian and French
more than Spanish) work more or less the same, but the proper
forms are the ones with a vowel (_le, la_) and the others are
formed by elision (_l'_). The difference with the Russian
prepositions in this case is none, synchronically speaking,
but it may be not so diachronically. Are _v, k, s_ contracted
forms of _vo, ko, so_, OR is the "o" in _vo, ko, so_ epenthetic?


--Pablo Flores

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
En gian idgrivar fr=FAmneltel frasi=E9rraser gian pavonn
be i malladhar siqged=FCer.

"Don't blame your enemy for your disgrace=20
 if you've just given them a chance."

(Traditional Dr=E1selhadh saying)