Re: vowel harmony extension?

On Thu, Oct 26, 2000 at 05:06:22PM -0700, SMITH,MARCUS ANTHONY wrote:
> I'm not aware of any harmony, but there is disharmony. In Old Japanese you
> can only have one voiced consonant per word. If you compound two words
> which both have voiced consonants, then the second one must devoice.
AH! So that's how that is. I've been wondering for quite some time how
to know whether to voice the first consonant of the second word or not. Do
you mean all the voiced consonants in the second word devoice, or just the
first consonant of it? In any case, I'm really fond of that feature. It's
especially cool in reduplicated words, because I like reduplication but only
when you modify the word somewhat, because it sounds silly to me to say have
the same exact sequence of sounds repeated twice :)

Actually, now that I think of it, are you sure you've got that rule right?
Things might have changed strangely since Old Japanese, but it seems to me
the first consonant of the second word gets *voiced*, e.g.: *pito-pito >
hitobito, *matu-pa > matsuba, *oo-tanuki > oodanuki.

--
Eric Christopherson / *Aiworegs Ghristobhorosyo