Re: natlang stuff: vowelless words

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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