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Re: natlang stuff: vowelless words

From:R. Nierse <rnierse@...>
Date:Thursday, April 22, 1999, 5:48
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Danny Wier 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... > > Russian (and other Slavic languages) have a few words made up of one > consonant and no vowel. These are all prepositions: > > _v_ "in; at; to" > _k_ "to; toward" (with dative) > _s_ "with, accompanied by" (with instrumental); "from" (with genitive) > > 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_. > > 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_. > > Any other natlang examples of this, and also conlangs?
I know of some Amerindian languages that have words without vowels: Bella Coola: qqs 'eye' Kwakiutl slq' '(some kind of) fish' These are words that can't be shouted. Rob