Re: a-umlaut (was Re: Epicene words)
| From: | Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Wednesday, March 2, 2005, 6:55 |
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On Tuesday, March 1, 2005, at 06:16 , Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
> Hallo!
>
> On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 02:20:42 +0100,
> Henrik Theiling <theiling@...> wrote:
[snip]
>> Yes, I noticed that, too. Nothing strange about that, but a-umlaut is
>> really a nice spice.
>
> That's what I thought, too. Originally, I had only i- and u-umlaut,
> but then I decided to add a-umlaut, such that all the three "extreme"
> vowels cause umlaut.
I meant to reply earlier to Henrik's mail, but real life got on the way!
a-umlaut is a feature of Welsh - for example, the adjective for "white" is:
*windo- (masc.) --> gwyn,
*winda- (fem.) --> gwen.
Other examples:
masc. fem.
short byr ber
little bychan bechan
round crwn cron
>
>>> and u-umlaut (e.g. dual _halyru_ < *hal-ir-u).
>>
>> You couldn't get enough? :-)
>
> No ;-) I resisted putting in e-umlaut, o-umlaut, etc.; that would
> have reduced my nice vowel system to a stew of /2/s ;-)
So I should think ;)
AFAIK e-umlaut & o-umlaut are not found in natlangs, only i-umlaut (the
most common), a-umlaut and u-umlaut (apparently the least common). It
seems that suffixes with vowels at the apexes of the vocalic triangle have
a tendency to affect the vowel of the stem.
Ray
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